The Church’s culmination of the Liturgical Year in the Solemnity of Christ the King has multiple levels of meaning. The obvious one is of the glorious ending of time and the judgment of the nations which invites us to think of a grand procession into the magnificence of the reality of Christ bringing all the Universe into complex harmony with the Trinity. This vision might be...
The Gospel reading presented for our reflection today serves as a reassurance and affirmation of the existence of life after death. In the Gospel, Jesus is quizzed by the Sadducees about life after death. Through the teachings of Jesus, we are enlightened that those deemed worthy shall transcend mortality and embrace a new existence akin to that of spiritual beings. No longer bound by the...
In less than two weeks, the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah begins. A nine branched candleholder marks the eight nights of this holiday. Today’s first reading provides the origin of this holiday – the rededication of the Second Temple of Israel. Prior to the coming of Christ, the temple was the most sacred place on earth; for it was the singular place where God dwelt among the...
Saying the words “thank you” is a very common way to show one’s gratitude. Strange as it may seem, while that is the custom in Western civilization, the words “thank you” signifies something entirely different in the Eastern countries of our world. This includes the Middle East, the far east, and the near East countries of our hemisphere. In these cultures, those...
Both of the readings for today’s celebration of the Eucharist are rather lengthy. Consequently, I will try to keep this short.
This parable appears in the Gospels in several different forms. In the Gospel of Saint Luke, there are 10 servants who each receive a coin. What happened to the other seven? We only hear about the first, the second, and the third.
Sometimes what we do not...