Two pregnant women. One on in age and the other young.
Both open to the Word of God alive and present within them.
One baby will be called John. One baby will be named Jesus.
Both names divinely chosen.
Two women embrace. The babies leap within their wombs.
Hello John. Hello Jesus whispers in the heartbeats of the two
yet to be born pressed within the bellies of their...
Most of the time we are told to “act our age.” This admonition is usually leveled against us when we are acting inappropriately for someone who has reached our particular age. It might come as a little bit of a shock, therefore, when St. Peter tells us that we should act like newborn babies. Newborns tend to make their needs known through their cries. They cry when they are hungry,...
I chose to celebrate the Votive Mass in Honor of the Precious Blood of Jesus for a very obvious reason this morning. St. Peter’s use of the word “precious” in his First Letter from which we read this morning was the first occasion when this adjective was used to describe the blood of Jesus. Ever since that use, it has become the usual way for us to refer to this element of...
Toward the end of today’s reading from the First Letter of St. Peter, we read words that may seem strange to us: “Gird up the loins of your mind.” In order to understand what St. Peter is asking in this admonition, we must cast our minds back to the night before the Israelites were released from Egypt; it was commonly known as the Passover when every family was to roast a...
The first assignment that I received after my ordination was to teach at the seminary where I had first received my education as a Franciscan friar and as a priest. I went right back to the beginning. All the members of the faculty of that seminary were Franciscan priests. Each year as we drew near to the Feast of the Holy Trinity, a good friend and fellow friar and brother priest would say...