There is a cost of discipleship -- Jesus sometimes calls us to leave behind professions, friends, even family. Does that mean that work and human relationships are at odds with growing in our relationship with God?...
It is good to pray for vocations. But who precisely has a calling? Priests, deacons, nuns, and religious certainly have a call or vocation. But how about the rest of us? Are we called and chosen? And if so, for...
All Saints Day gives us the opportunity to honor and celebrate the multitudes of Christians who are in heaven yet who don't appear on the list of canonized saints or have a feast day in their honor. But it also provides us the chance...
How did the Pharisees, who were God's champions in the days of the Maccabees, become the villains who sought the death of God's son? They were deformed by an insidious spiritual disease that is the deadliest of the seven deadly or capital sins - pride....
When his enemies quiz him about what commandment is the greatest, Jesus reveals just how radical he really is. His answer goes to the very root of every single one of the 613 commandments found in the law of the Old Testament - the distinct...
Why would people decline a royal invitation to a wedding feast fit for a king? This parable of Jesus describes a situation we see around us everyday - pervasive apathy in the face of the offer of salvation and eternal life in the Kingdom of...
The parable of the merciless servant illustrates the meaning of "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us," a petition included in the Lord's Prayer. Anger can be righteous, but when we let it harden into resentment it becomes...
Saint Rose of Lima on the unfathomable treasure of divine grace which comes to us through afflictions, tribulations, and struggles. Read on her feast day, August 23. [dropcaps type='normal' font_size='100' color='' background_color='' border_color='']O[/dropcaps]ur Lord and Savior lifted up his voice and said with incomparable majesty: “Let...
Jesus heals the daughter of the Canaanite woman because her faith was so great. He rebuked the disciples because their faith was too little. Matthew's gospel here is teaching us something very important about the nature of the faith that moves mountains....
The gospel story of Jesus walking on the water and Peter sinking has much to teach us about the difference between fear, little faith, and the kind of trust that endures waves and storms, trials and crisis....