From Jewish roots In actual fact, fasting from meat on Fridays can be traced all the way back to the earliest Christian communities who continued many Jewish fasting traditions that were first laid down in the Old Testament (Leviticus 11 & 23:26-32). Before the start of Christianity, pious Jews would fast from most animal products  Read more …

It is never too late to come back to God Not all, but many congregations are dwindling exponentially from within. These are folks who were active in their faith but for some reason stopped coming to church. One such prodigal shared questions with me like: Does God want me back?; I was a believer but  Read more …

People attending our Mass think a lot of things about the different postures we take. Things like “Oh, up we go again.” And “Why are we kneeling?” Which is why this series focuses on the “why” of sitting, standing, and kneeling during a Mass. Sitting: In the bible, sitting is a posture of listening. We  Read more …

The reason Lent lasts 40 days is that 40 is the traditional number of judgment and spiritual testing in the Bible (Gn 7:4, Ex 24:18, 34:28, Nm 13:25, 14:33, Jon 3:4). Lent bears particular relationship to the 40 days Christ spent fasting in the desert before entering into his public ministry (Mt 4:1-11). We imitate  Read more …

Demons Jesus went into the wilderness and struggled with the demons. Such is the metaphor of Spiritual life presented to us in today’s Gospel. In the course of our lives, we are all “led into the desert by the Spirit,” and we must struggle with the demons. We struggle with the demon of self-sufficiency. Ignoring  Read more …

Even the liturgy “fasts” in preparation for the glorious season of Easter. The pre-Lenten and Lenten seasons are marked by two very distinct liturgical omissions. Neither the hymn known as the Gloria (Glory to God in the Highest) nor the Alleluia verse sung before the Gospel is permitted during the entire 40 days of Lent  Read more …

“Lord, I want to see.” Bartimaeus’s request is granted. “Be on your way, your faith has healed you.” Salvation consists in doing the will of God. It is the most perfect thing we can do. So we are always trying to discern what God’s will is for me. Jesus turns that question around and asks  Read more …

Why do we make the sign of the cross when entering the church, at the beginning of the mass or any other prayer? The answer is both simple and profound. In the Sign of the Cross, we profess the deepest mysteries of the Christian Faith, the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the saving  Read more …

The Sower Today’s gospel describes the struggles of sowing, living, growing. All of us struggle, and we struggle in three ways: we struggle to maintain ourselves, (be on the good ground), struggle to grow (get out of the thorns), and struggle to keep depression and death at bay (fall upon the rock). Because we struggle  Read more …

People often don’t look forward to Lent. Childhood memories of giving up candy or sitting through weekly Stations of the Cross come immediately to mind. Words like “sacrifice”, “discipline” and “self-denial” are often used in ways that suggest that Lent is something to be endured rather than a time of grace and spiritual growth. Have  Read more …