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, […]

We don’t often hear from the Book of Job at Sunday Mass.  In fact, we only hear from it twice in the three-year reading cycle, and only in Year B, as we are in this year.  Today’s reading is a good reason why we don’t – it’s really rather depressing, isn’t it?  We hear Job complain: “Is not man’s life on earth a drudgery? …So I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights have been allotted me.”  Not very good news, is it?  I don’t know about you, […]

Boy, how time flies.  It seems that we have just finished the Christmas Season and celebrated the New Year and already, Lent is looming.  Ash Wednesday and Lent begin in just four weeks from this coming Wednesday.  January is almost half over; tomorrow is the 15^th of January – can you believe it!?!  As we return to Ordinary Time over these next few weeks, we are reminded that God has ordered time for our salvation.  Our lives have a purpose – each of us has a sacred calling from God […]

An epiphany is an event where something hidden is revealed.  Most of us experienced this recently as we opened our Christmas gifts.  In our family, we gather around the Christmas tree that is surrounded by countless gifts for all.  The youngest children who are able to do so take turns finding a gift for everyone in the room and then we open them together.  Of course, we old folks wait as the children open their gifts because we don’t want to miss the excitement as they tear away the wrapping […]

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, with time to celebrate with family and friends.  As usual, I joined my brother, Will, and his family for Christmas and, like Simeon who took Jesus into his arms, I was blessed to hold my latest great niece, Whitney, once again.  It was so precious to see her, now two months old.  I’ll be baptizing her here next Saturday; what a privilege that will be!  This is a very sacred time of the year as we reflect on the great mystery of […]

Have you ever noticed that we human beings have a seemingly infinite capacity to complicate things?  It’s like we have a built-in aversion to the simple.  We often take the simplest situation and we make it a complicated affair.  As they say, we make mountains out of molehills.  And, when we do, we often miss the real point.  But, when you get the heart of it, often the greatest experiences of life, and the greatest insights, have a way of turning out to be very simple.  Take Christmas, for example.  […]