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  Monday – Exaltation of the Cross Gospel – John 3:13-17 Simple Gifts Mount of Beatitudes Heading out the door this morning and it suddenly dawned on me what a set routine I go through just to leave the house.   Wallet?   Check!   Pen?   Yup (and yes, for all my students, it is still a blue pen)!   Keys?   Check! Cellphone?   Double Check!   I can still remember my dad and his routine!   Besides all the obvious, he never ever left the house without a toothpick, a hat, and a little spiral notepad and a pencil.   He would always be taking notes, checking on his gas mileage, etc. Over the past year, I have added one other item to my ‘heading out’ routine.   It’s a simple little wooden cross.   It is made of olive wood and was carved in Bethlehem.   I blessed it with water from the Jordan River.   I say ‘it’ but I really mean ‘them’.   I brought back a couple of bags of these little crosses.   And w...
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  24 th Sunday in Ordinary Time Gospel – Matthew 18:21-35 Forgive Me! Site of Peter’s Denial, Jerusalem Back when I was a Sophomore at the University of Maryland, my Dad and I had a little disagreement.   It was the height of the Vietnam War; it was the year of Kent State, protests and the Moratorium and my draft number was 115.   I told my Dad that I was against the war and that, if I was drafted, I wouldn’t serve.   His response: “that’s fine.   You are entitled to your opinion but, if you do that, you are no longer my son.”     I was never called up so we did not have to go down that road any further. But it did drive an unspoken/unaddressed wedge in our relationship for a long time. Many years later, not that long before he passed away unexpectedly, Dad and I were on the phone talking about nothing special – the weather, football, family.   And out of the blue, he suddenly blurted out “you know that whole Vietnam War thing; well,...
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  Saturday – 23 rd Week in Ordinary Time      Gospel – Luke 6:43-49                                                 Shaky Ground Storms over Mt. Carmel An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer-contractor of his plans to leave the house-building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife and enjoying his extended family. He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire. They could get by. The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials. It was...
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