I’m sure that you have been told more than once that we should offer our sufferings to God to receive his graces and providential care. “Offer it up!” Though St. Paul’s words are more elaborate, he offers the same advice. “I bear with everything for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus…”...

The readings on the Second Letter of St. Paul to Timothy joined to the Gospel text from the Gospel of St. Mark offer us a very good summary of the kerygmatic teaching of the earliest disciples. First, St. Paul tells us that Jesus came to live among us to save us. The Scriptures relate to this particular tenet of our faith frequently and persuasively. Jesus saves. All we have to do is accept...

Psalm ninety, which is used as our response today, is classified as a communal lamentation. Though the Lectionary for Daily Mass leaves out a good portion of this psalm, the verses that we use today force us to meditate on the shortness of human life. God exists in eternity. From before creation to the last human generation, God is God. Human beings, on the other hand, are fleeting like sleep...

The symbolism of blood in the Hebrew Scriptures, with its references to sacrifice and covenant, is not only strange but also repugnant to our contemporary consciousness. Yet we cannot understand what the New Testament is saying about the death of Jesus and about our link with that death in the Eucharist without considering the ancient symbolism of blood. The reading from Exodus presents...

When I was a boy, there was a very funny and popular commercial that interrupted our television watching. The commercial was from the product known as Anison, a pain reliever that today we would know as an anti-inflammatory, non-steroid drug. It was a combination of aspirin and caffeine. It is still on the market today, but I have not seen the commercial for it in a very long time. That may be...