Although the Church has never officially designated a Pope as “the Great,” three canonized popes have acquired that title by popular acclamation. (With the recent death and canonization of St. Pope John Paul II, we may be seeing a fourth.) Today we celebrate the memorial of Pope St. Gregory the Great.
Gregory was born to a wealthy Roman family and received a...
You seduced me,* LORD, and I let myself be seduced; you were too strong for me, and you prevailed. All day long I am an object of laughter; everyone mocks me. (Jeremiah 20:7) I confess that I am a little confused. Although the official web site of the United States Catholic Conference offers this as the first line of tomorrow’s reading from the prophet Jeremiah, the...
Today we celebrate what is technically called a “privileged memorial,” not quite a feast day but celebrated with a little more solemnity than an obligatory memorial. We recall that St. John the Baptist was imprisoned and executed by Herod because of his preaching.
St. John the Baptist is one of those biblical characters that is caught in the middle. He is often seen...
Those of us who are familiar with the Christian Scriptures, commonly known as the New Testament, are probably aware that early Christian believers worked under a presumption that Jesus would return sooner rather than later after his return to the Father. The urgency which underlies the writings of St. Paul, the documents which are the first written after Jesus’ ascension, is...
“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16b) When Simon Peter first uttered these words as recorded in the Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, they changed his life forever. However, rather than being able to take any credit for having said them, he was quickly reminded by Jesus that this “knowledge” had been given to him rather than acquired of his own...