Archive | Question of the Week

We celebrate each week our small taste of the eternal banquet in the Eucharist at Mass. On the surface it may seem to pale in comparison with the sumptuous food and drink we find on this earth, nonetheless with faith we realize that the love it expresses is worth more than all the pleasures we […]

Today’s Gospel is not a parable of forgiveness and love but of the truth of faith. He calls us to bear fruit for the Kingdom of God or it shall be taken from us, just like the tenants of the vineyard. In layman’s terms, we have to do His will or risk never knowing the […]

Today’s Gospel reading asks each of us whether or not we are about the Father’s business. It is very easy for us to think that because we do the external things which give others and sometimes ourselves the impression that we are good Christians; that we are fulfilling the obligations which good sons and daughters […]

We can, unfortunately, be rather like the workers in today’s Gospel – except that the stakes are rather higher than a day’s wage. God has offered us eternal life and asks us to serve Him in this world until the day when we are with Him forever. The problem is that we can be tempted […]

God has offered us mercy, but we still need to accept this incredible gift. As we learn in the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, because God is merciful and has forgiven our debt of sin, which we could never pay, we must, in turn, be merciful toward others. Most people have faced situations where they […]

Today’s Gospel points us toward the origins of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The reconciliation available in the life of the Church is the reconciliation Jesus brings to the world. The words with which our reading ends, though brief, have immense importance to us, as we seek to understand more fully in the mystery of the […]

Jesus makes the point strongly – not only is He destined to suffer but those who follow Him are going to suffer too. The true followers of Jesus will, like Him, have to shoulder the burdens of suffering and death. They could avoid it by conforming to the things that the world values – but, […]

Peter does not have a great track record. He stumbles, sinks, doesn’t get it, and, at his worst, even denies Jesus multiple times. And yet, this is the person Jesus chooses to be the rock of the Church. Why? When Jesus asks pointedly to His disciples who they personally believe Him to be, Peter responds […]

In today’s Gospel, a brave and faithful woman challenges Jesus, and He discovers, and we discover too, that it doesn’t matter whether you’re a Canaanite from Tyre or Sidon or anywhere else. All those boundaries and barriers we make so much of: ethnicity, class, nationality, upbringing – so many barriers, so many divisions – none […]

Jesus is the Presence among us who interprets for us what may seem to be incomprehensible. He makes our hearts burn again, as once they burned before. And he comes to us – not as a “ghost” walking on the water – but as He always said He would: as the hungry man, the thirsty […]