You can learn a great deal about a person or a culture by looking at the food, specifically what is eaten, how it is prepared or preserved, and how people gather to consume it. Even if the cuisines differ, the role of food is similar in cultures all around the world. It is what we share with others in bad times and good times. We bring food to families struggling with the...
The proverb that we hear from the Prophet Ezekiel in today’s first reading was invoked by people who wished to place the blame for their misdeeds upon their ancestors. They were the way they were because of those who had come before them. In a way, we could actually hark back to God’s self- revelation before Moses on Mount Sinai. In a famous scene from the Book of Exodus, God...
Today’s first reading from the Prophet Ezekiel is comprised of seventeen of the sixty-three verses of chapter sixteen. Because the framers of the Lectionary for Daily Mass have obviously given us the Reader’s Digest version of this chapter, it may be as confusing as it is surely difficult for us to read. The images which the prophet uses offend our sensibilities. However, Ezekiel...
Our devotion to the Blessed Mother in Catholic worship is surrounded by many Latin-sounding words: immaculate conception, assumption, annunciation. In ordinary language we use the word “assumption” like this: our host made the assumption that I like Brussels sprouts. In regard to this feast, it means “to take up”; Mary’s whole person is taken up into heaven....
The last of the “I AM” statements in St. John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus is the vine and that we are the branches. In order to really understand what is intended in this statement, we must read it backwards. The very last verse gives us the hermeneutic to interpret the symbolism of the vine and the branches. That last statement reads: ““I have told you this so...