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  Saturday - Second Week of Lent Gospel – Luke 15:1-3, 11-32 Daddy Always Liked You Best Chapel of Nativity, Bethlehem There’s an old Jewish story about two adult brothers, each of them a farmer.   The older one was married with 10 children and the younger one was single and no kids.   The younger one felt sorry for his older brother having to feed all those kids; so every night he would load up a bag of wheat from his barn and took it to his brother’s barn.   And every night the older brother, worrying about his younger brother growing old and having no one to support him, would also load up a wagon with wheat and place it in his brother’s barn.   Finally one night they met midway between their barns, realized what was happening, and they embraced! That is certainly not the case in the story of the Prodigal Son.   The older son harbors resentment and anger toward his brother for wasting his inheritance and his father for welcoming him back with ope...
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  Friday - Second Week of Lent Gospel – Matthew 21:33-43, 45-46 Kill the Messenger? Synagogue Church, Nazareth Today’s Gospel parable is essentially a summary of salvation history for the Jews!   The landowner (God) created this beautiful vineyard (the earth) and then put tenants in place to care for it (humanity).   When He sent servants (prophets) to collect the harvest (their faith), the tenants abuse and even kill the servants (refuse to listen to the prophets). Finally He send His Son (Jesus) and they killed Him too – a prediction of Jesus’ coming passion and death. While their response to the servants and the son are extreme, the message is clear!   God continues to send us His messengers; He continues to call us to account, to see how well we have been tending the vineyard (keeping the faith).   Are we listening?   Did we hear the message? The tenants in the parable give in to envy and resentment, to their worst faults. They think they know b...
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Thursday - Second Week of Lent Gospel – Luke 16:19-31 If I Were A Rich Man… Homeless Sculpture, Capernaum When we first got married, we lived in a very tiny studio apartment.   We used wooden nail kegs as chairs and a cable reel from the electric company as our table.   We made our own Christmas ornaments that first year and still have some of them to this day.   We would spend some cold days at Loyola’s Library because the apartment was too cold.   Some of our meals were ‘creative – using instant mashed potatoes to make soup! Our one luxury was a sofa sleeper!   Were we rich?   By any economic standard, definitely not!   Were we happy? Absolutely!   Granted, we look back on that time with a touch of nostalgia but, all in all, we made do with what we had!   We didn’t really focus on what we didn’t have or couldn’t afford!   We just made good use of what we had! The Rich Man in today’s Gospel just doesn’t get it!   It’s not t...
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