Gospel Reflections for Challenging Times

  Monday – 8 th Week in Ordinary Time Gospel – Mark 10:17-30 Excess Baggage Entrance to Church of Nativity, Bethlehem If there is one thing I have learned from our trips to the Holy Land, it is this.   Travel light! That is not as easy as it sounds.   It means deciding between what you need and what you want to take, between what is necessary and what is optional!   Most of you know exactly what I’m talking about.   In some way, early in the pandemic when we were stuck at home, we did much the same thing at home - cleaning up and cleaning out. It was a constant process of deciding what do I want and what do I really need!    Slowly and methodically, Ginger and I worked on every room in our house, top to bottom, even windows and curtains.   That also meant cleaning out closets and drawers, packing up and getting rid of lots of ‘stuff’ that had been lying around un-used for years.   You know what I mean – all those things we have been saving for a rainy day.   And yet that ra

  8 th Sunday in Ordinary Time Gospel – Luke 6:39-45 Cracked Pots Chapel at Cana   A water bearer in ancient India had two large pots, each hung on an end of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master’s house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his master’s house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect to the end for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do. After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it finally spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to

  Saturday – 7 th Week in Ordinary Time Gospel – Mark 10:13-22 With Open Arms Altar Servers, Easter Vigil One of the great joys and blessings of my ministry as a Deacon is working with my altar servers.   The excitement on their faces and the outpouring of enthusiasm when they show up for their first day of training is something to behold.   They are like little balls of energy just waiting to burst forth.   Watching them put on their robes and cinctures and they serve their first Mass and then seeing their parents in the pew taking pictures – what more can I say?   For the first few months or so, they also wear a small server pin until they have had a few Masses under their belt and they reach a certain comfort level.   And then that joy on their face when I take the pin away and place the cross around their neck, it’s amazing!   And even years later, when I see them at recess, they will still run up to me and ask when is the next Mass they will be serving!   That energy, t

  Friday – 7 th Week in Ordinary Time Gospel – Mark 10:2-12 In Good Times and In Bad…. Wedding Chapel at Cana I have a confession to make.   I live in a divided house and it’s been that way for over 47 years.   Ginger and I are on opposite sides of a disagreement and both of us are resolute and infinitely stubborn.   Nothing I do can change her mind and the same with her.   Most days the argument is left unspoken but it’s always there.   Day after day, I try to get Ginger to accept my point of view but it only falls on deaf ears.   And so it is with her arguments for me!   After all these years, it seems the issue will never be resolved!   You see, I’m a coffee-drinker and Ginger only drinks tea!   It seems such a minor issue but I think it is at the heart of what Jesus is addressing in today’s Gospel when He is asked about divorce.   We are meant to be together; we are meant to commit ourselves to each other.   That doesn’t mean there aren’t times when relationships di