Does God Punish Us?
Friends, I want to focus this week on the second reading, which is from the marvelous Letter to the Hebrews. It addresses a very important and very controversial topic—namely, the divine punishment. Y...
20 Aug 202515min
Christ Came to Cast Fire Upon the Earth
Friends, the title of my ministry, Word on Fire, came from our Gospel for today. Jesus says to his disciples, “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” This is no...
14 Aug 202514min
What Is Faith?
Friends, on this Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, our second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews offers us a great biblical description of faith. I stand with Paul Tillich, the Protestant theolo...
5 Aug 202515min
All Things Must Pass
Friends, George Harrison once sang, “All things must pass; all things must pass away.” Almost every major religious figure and philosopher the world over has intuited this great truth about our world....
29 Jul 202515min
Lord, Teach Us to Pray
Friends, we have the great privilege this week of reading, in our Gospel, Luke’s account of the Lord’s Prayer. This is a very sacred moment: Jesus himself—not just a spiritual guru or someone we admir...
23 Jul 202515min
Are You Anxious and Worried About Many Things?
Friends, on this Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, our Gospel is the Martha and Mary story, and in my years of preaching, I’ve found that it tends to bother people a lot. With the first reading about...
15 Jul 202514min
The Natural Law
Friends, in our first reading from the book of Deuteronomy this week, Moses says to the people, “For this command that I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you. . . . No, it is s...
8 Jul 202515min
The Church’s Marching Orders
Friends, as we resume Ordinary Time, it’s appropriate that we’re looking at a portrait of the Church, because we’re coming back, if you want, to the ordinary work of the Church up and down the ages to...
1 Jul 202514min
