Today we celebrate the Feast of All Saints, a celebration that offers a glimpse of what awaits all who remain faithful to Christ.  We don’t often celebrate this feast on a Sunday; it happens only every five or six years.  This is a wonderful opportunity for us reflect on “what love the Father has bestowed on us” because we are “called the children of God,” as we hear so clearly proclaimed in today’s second reading.

On this day, we experience the hope of unity, of wholeness.  We find hope in the […]

What is love? Each of us probably has our own understanding of love, as well as varying experiences of loving or being loved. We need love as much as we need the air we breathe.  So, it’s important to ask ourselves: what is love?  Is it just an emotion, or a virtue?  Is it chemistry or a psychological commitment, or is it a rational decision?  As Catholics we will find the answer by looking to Jesus and his teachings.  And, as you know, Jesus came to fulfill the law and […]

Wow – those scribes and Pharisees were slow to learn, weren’t they!?!  Over the past three weeks, we’ve heard Jesus try to open their eyes to their disobedience, avarice and indifference toward God and neighbor and today, instead of repenting and turning back to God, we hear them double down and plot against him.  Let’s quickly review.  Three Sundays ago, we heard Jesus speak to them through the parable of the man who asked his two sons to go work in his vineyard.  You’ll recall that the first son said […]

As we listened to today’s Gospel, it was easy for us to imagine why such strong tension developed between Jesus and the Jewish chief priests and elders.  Jesus presented this parable right after he presented the one we heard last week about the two sons, one of whom said he would go to work in the vineyard but didn’t and the other who said he wouldn’t go but did.  In both of these parables, the owner of the vineyard is clearly God.  In both stories, we can see that Jesus […]