“Love one another as I love you.” Our Lord’s instruction in today’s gospel sounds so simple and straightforward and it’s a wonderful message for us today as we celebrate Mother’s Day and welcome some of our young parishioners around our Lord’s Table in a special way as they receive Holy Communion for the very first time.  These are certainly both wonderful occasions to experience love from God and our children.  But, as we have probably all experienced, it can be a real challenge to love, especially when we don’t feel […]

I hope you have all been enjoying this lovely weather this weekend.  I imagine some of you have been out in your yards and gardens sprucing everything up.  I invite you to picture the master gardener, whistling, wearing a floppy hat, pruning shears in hand, smiling as he cleans up his garden, snipping away the dead branches on all the vegetation he has so carefully planted in his garden.  God is at work.  From the moment God placed Adam and Eve in his garden, he has been pruning his most […]

It’s hard to believe that our current pope, Francis, has been pope for eight years already.  I thought of that earlier this week when I happened to drive past the Malvern Retreat House because I had been there with some 200 fellow priests for our annual priests workshop eight years ago and we had all crowded around a television that been set up because the consistory was taking place – the election of the next pope – and news had just broken of the white smoke, indicating that the pope […]

“Peace be with you.”  Three times in today’s Gospel, we hear the risen Lord assure his disciples with these comforting words: “Peace be with you.”  And, although this greeting of peace, “Shalom,” was a common expression among the Jewish people of his day – as it still is today – it had taken on a much deeper meaning for the followers of Jesus who had just gone through three days filled with anything but peace.  It made them remember our Lord’s words of encouragement to them just a few days […]