“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 […]

Again, allow me to wish all of you a joyous Easter with a hopeful message for all of us believers.  Christ is risen! Alleluia!  These are the victorious words we shout with gusto on this greatest of all feast days.  This is a celebration of moving from doubt to belief, from fear to faith, from death to life.  Our readings present the strong faith that the earliest followers of Jesus expressed as they spread the Good News of our salvation in the risen Lord.  In today’s first reading, we hear […]

Over these past three days, we have participated in something most unusual – in fact, absolutely unique in the history of humanity.  God, the almighty, the creator of the universe and all that is in it, the maker of light and darkness, life and death, has died in his human form.  As we recite in the Nicene Creed every Sunday, “for our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried.”  Every Good Friday, silence envelopes the earth as it contemplates this terrible reality.  We have […]

You know this is a special Sunday when we have two gospels.  And, you can’t help but notice how different our two Gospel passages are in tone and sentiment.  We began with Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem to the adulation of the crowd, and followed it with Mark’s account of his passion, at the hands of that same crowd.

As Jesus enters Jerusalem, he is at first the focus of Israel’s deepest hopes and dreams.  Frenzied crowds shout with pleading and joy – Hosanna – which means both, “save us, we […]

Once again, Happy St. Patty’s Day!  It’s fun to see so many of you dressed in green.  My nod to the Irish is this little button that has a green stripe across it and says: “If you’re not Irish, fake it!”  Last Sunday, a number of our proud parents watched with great delight as their children participated in the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Philadelphia.  I enjoyed watching some of it on television and I caught it just as our group came on.  It was great to see these […]

My mother was a great cook and rather good at making pastries – cakes, pies and my favorite, cream puffs filled with real whipped cream and drizzled with dark chocolate.  Whenever we would celebrate our birthday, my mother would let us choose what we wanted for dinner, including dessert; what a treat that was!  My mother was also good at teaching us how to cook and eager to help us do well.  One day, as my mother’s birthday approached, my older sister, Yolanda, announced that she would make the dessert: […]

Over the past three weeks, the Sunday readings have reminded us of God’s covenant relationship with us.  Remember, a covenant is an agreement between two parties, based on love and calling for a faithful relationship. God has established covenants with us because of his infinite love.  He promises to care for us and calls us to be faithful to him. On the first Sunday of Lent, we heard of God making a covenant with Noah, promising him that “there shall not be another flood to devastate the earth.”  This is […]

Jerusalem has been much in the news lately as the war rages on between Israel and the Hamas.  I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of the old city of Jerusalem.  The Al Aqsa Mosque, also known as the Golden Dome of the Rock, dominates the ancient skyline.  The gold-encrusted dome sits atop a Muslim mosque and a site that is sacred, not only to believers of Islam, but to Christians and Jewish people as well.  Those of you who have been to Jerusalem certainly remember the first time you saw this […]

Every ancient civilization records a great flood occurring in their distant past.  We now know it was the result of the end of the last Ice Age some 10,000 years ago.  You can imagine the great destruction caused by the receding glaciers and the floods that ensued as they melted.  As you probably know, the Great Lakes were carved out and filled in at this time.  It was just another moment in the evolution of our planet but, like many other ancient civilizations, Israel saw a divine lesson in this […]

A leper comes to Jesus and says to him, “If you wish, you can make me clean.”  At that moment, the crowd around Jesus surely fell silent.  As they stepped away from the man afflicted with that dreaded disease, they all gazed at Jesus and wanted to see what he was going to do.  They may have muttered amongst themselves was, “One thing he would never do is touch him.”  That’s because those who had spent time with Jesus had remembered that in his previous healing incidents he did, indeed, […]