The Three Tasks of the Church
Pope Benedict has said that the church has three basic jobs: to care for the poor, to evangelize, and to worship. These three are on clear display in our three readings for the weekend.
26 Okt 200814min
Render to Caesar
The Gospel for today raises the famously complex question of the relationship between "religion" and "politics." Though there is a legitimate distinction between the two, this can never turn into a se...
19 Okt 200814min
The Sacred Banquet
One of the most powerful and enduring symbols of God's intention toward the world is the sacred banquet. God wants his life to flow into us and through us to one another. The result of this is life an...
12 Okt 200814min
Lessons from the Vineyard
In both the prophet Isaiah and the Gospel of Matthew, we find the image of the vineyard as a symbol of Israel. As Jesus develops this image, we see both the glory and the tragedy of Israel-as well as ...
5 Okt 200814min
Old Adam or New Adam
Our second reading contains one of the most precious texts in the Christian tradition, Paul's description of the mind of Christ. While the old Adam clung to godliness and hence fell, the new Adam let ...
28 Sep 200814min
As High as the Heavens
The Biblical manner of dealing with the problem of evil is neither to deny the fact of evil nor the fact of God's existence. Rather, it is to stress the transcendence and inscrutability of God's ways....
21 Sep 200814min
The Triumph of the Cross
We will understand the power of this feast only when we grasp how very strange it is to speak of the cross as a triumph. Paul's great hymn in his letter to the Phillipians helps us to grasp how the cr...
14 Sep 200814min
Fraternal Correction
The command to love compels us to engage in the difficult task of fraternal correction, but it enjoins us to do so carefully, always aware that it can slide easily enough into a game of ego-inflation....
7 Sep 200814min
