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I always think of St. Francis of Assisi when I hear this Gospel (Mk 1:40-45). In it Jesus heals a leper, but he did it by actually touching him. St. Francis found lepers of his day particularly repulsive, his biographer reported, and one day, inspired by this very Scripture, he…
“Do not let me hear again, the voice of the Lord my God, nor look any longer on this great fire, or I shall die” (from first reading of fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Deut. 18: 15-20). We create layers of insulation between us and God. God seems dangerous, scary,…
Healing is front and center in our Sunday Scriptures this week and next week. Today, in our first reading we hear the discouraged speech of Job, crushed by life’s reversals. In the Gospel, we hear how Jesus cured Peter’s mother-in-law and then went on to heal many other villagers. Next…
The second reading for this Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (1 Cor 7:32-35) always makes me giggle! Paul says, I should like you to be free from anxieties, and then in the rest of the passage he proceeds to list how everyone experiences anxieties — unmarried or married, men or women! Commentary says that…
“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men,” Jesus says to Simon and Andrew, and probably also to James and John who also are called in today’s Gospel. I wonder if they were afraid? If Jesus was? Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist, had been arrested. They must…
This week and next, we have two Gospel accounts about the same event: the calling by Jesus of his first disciples. This Sunday we hear John’s account, and next Sunday Mark’s description. John the Evangelist is writing at the end of the first century. Having lived as a believer and…
The first two nights of the New Year were crystal clear and the first supermoon of the month was out in all its supermoon glory. I had noticed it as it rose big and full over the horizon. Several hours later, I looked out a window again and was amazed…
The U.S. church celebrates the Feast of Epiphany on January 7. The story of the three mystery visitors is from Matthew’s Gospel, and they are “from the east.” An often-made point by preachers and Scripture scholars is that Matthew is introducing a main theme of his Gospel, that Jesus of Nazareth is…
The Feast of the Holy Family is on Dec. 31 this year. Our Hebrew Scripture reading lifts up Abraham, willing to offer his only son Isaac to God, while our Gospel describes the parents of Jesus presenting him to the Lord in the temple in Jerusalem. This feast day was…
As a kid I remember the anticipation and impatience of waiting for the adults to decide it was time for the Christmas tree. The impatience quickly turned to excitement as we went in search of the perfect tree. We always had real Christmas trees. Often, over the years, we had…
