Archive | Question of the Week

We need to live the faith we profess. Religious people are all too often like the Pharisees and scribes, laying heavy loads on other people’s shoulders without lifting a finger to help them. Instead of judging the poor, we should be serving them through our efforts for economic justice. Instead of criticizing those of other […]

The implication of today’s Gospel is that loving our neighbor means more than being kind to our friends and relatives, or to the person who lives next door. Loving one’s neighbor means doing right by any widow or orphan: seeing that the hungry are fed and the homeless sheltered, that the poor have their basic […]

The image of Caesar on the coin is an indication that the money is Caesar’s. But the point of Jesus’ line is also that each one of us is God’s because each of us bears stamped in his soul the image of God. It is an honor and a glory to us, each one of […]

The parables of the King’s wedding feast and wedding garment confront us with the reality that we cannot be Christian without conversation; we cannot come to the feast of heaven while remaining indifferent to the empty plates before so many of the world’s children; we cannot love the God we cannot see if we cannot […]

We should see today’s Gospel reading as a challenge to see what the Lord Jesus has entrusted to us. God has provided all that I need to produce a rich harvest for Him. He’s given me many tools that I can use in order to care for the part of the vineyard in which God […]

We are often like the first son in today’s parable. We say “yes”, we believe as we worship inside our churches, but when we get home, to work, schook, or neightborhood we don’t put our belief into action. Adults: When have your actions not measured up to your promises? Children: Why is it important to […]

What really bothers us in the parable is God’s equal rewarding of latecomers and newcomers. Will it be the same for us? Is the man who lives a life of sin but who converts on his deathbed going to get the same reward that we receive? Surely we must warrant at least a high ranking […]

Like Peter we can sometimes think we can limit forgiveness to a certain number of times. We say to ourselves, “I have forgiven that person two times already. I’m not forgiving again.” Yet Jesus instisst that we forgive again and again, just as God Forgives us. Today’s parable reminds us that God is always ready […]

Jesus set for his followers a three-step procedure for reconciling differences among the community. In the first step we are told to go one-on-one to the person and try to work out the problem. If that doesn’t work, we are to take some witnesses, or in the final case, bring the offender before representatives of […]

In today’s Gospel, Jesus challenges us to lose our life in order to find it. St. Francis de Sales speaks of losing our life so as to find it in Christ through a change of heart. To lose our life in this sense is to let go of our unhealthy, self-centered loves. That may cause […]