LENT BEGINS
It’s been a strange and unusually warm winter, hasn’t it? With the exception of a few extraordinarily frigid days and one snow storm, it’s felt more like fall or spring than winter. Now, spring is fast approaching. Liturgically, Lent – which means “spring” – is almost here; it starts this week with Ash Wednesday. Just as the natural world is reawakened and renewed every spring, each year, the Church, in her wisdom, offers us this liturgical Season of Lent, a season for reconciliation and renewal in preparation for Easter, when […]
FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
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, […]
NATIONAL CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK
National Catholic Schools Week is an annual celebration of Catholic education in the United States. Now entering its 50th anniversary year, it is an opportunity for us to recognize the importance of Catholic education and formation and to celebrate our school that has instructed and formed our children for over 100 years. Our school has enjoyed a strong reputation as an outstanding Catholic elementary school ever since it opened in 1916. It was originally founded to ensure that the Catholic children in this area would receive both an excellent education […]
REFLECTIONS ON RECENT VATICAN DECLARATION – Part 2
REFLECTIONS ON RECENT VATICAN DECLARATION
Part 2
Last week, I provided you with a summary of the recent Vatican declaration entitled Fiducia Supplicans in response to questions that had been raised over the past several years regarding same-sex couples. As you read this summary, you will recall that it ended with: “beyond the guidance provided above, no further responses should be expected about possible ways to regulate details or practicalities regarding blessings of this type.” It sounded as if the Vatican’s Office for the Doctrine of the Faith expected that it had […]
SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
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 15th 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 […]
THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (Year B)
Jonah 3:1 – 5, 10
This Sunday, we will hear from the Book of Jonah. The passage was clearly chosen to prepare us for the Gospel, as we shall see. We only hear from this book once every three years on Sunday – that is, this Sunday – so let’s spend some time understanding its genre. It is listed as a prophetic book, but is unique among the prophets for two reasons: 1) it is not a collection of oracles, but a narrative; and 2) Jonah’s behavior is the opposite of […]