Heaven or Hell? Our lives on earth are temporary.  Where do we go after our earthly sojourn? Jesus answers: to Heaven or to Hell depending on how you lived. In this Sunday’s gospel, the story of Lazarus and the rich man, Jesus teaches us that Heaven and Hell are both real, literal places. Sadly, many  Read more …

We celebrate the body and blood of Christ not as isolated objects of adoration but as food and drink, like the manna in the desert and the water brought forth from a rock. Jesus makes it very clear how we are to approach his body and blood: “If you do not eat the flesh of  Read more …

Unum Deus in Trinitate (one God in three persons) One of the foundational truths of our faith is the “one God in three Persons: Father all-powerful, Christ Lord and Savior, Spirit of love”.  How do we understand the Trinity?  We don’t!  God, by definition, is ineffable, beyond conceptualization, beyond imagination, beyond language. The Christian belief  Read more …

Whosoever would be saved needeth before all things to hold fast the Catholic Faith. Which Faith except a man keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he will perish eternally. Now the Catholic Faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the Persons nor dividing the Substance.  Read more …

The Sunday that is seven weeks (50 days) after Easter Day is the Feast of Pentecost.  Pentecost is the is the day on which we remember the story given to us in the second chapter of the Book of Acts. The story goes:– 40 days after the resurrection (which we celebrate at Easter) Jesus ascends  Read more …

The Great Sharing Pentecost is not just another Sunday. It is a celebration quite equal to Christmas and to Easter itself.  It is the official sending of the Holy Spirit into men and women.  This is the moment we have been hearing Jesus talk about for weeks in the gospels.  He has been telling us  Read more …

The Waiting Room When thinking in this weekly reflection, I was immediately drawn to the space between Ascension and Pentecost, two momentous events of our liturgical season.  There’s a trough, a low space, between Christ’s ascending and the Holy Spirit’s descending.  This is a space of holy waiting, explicitly commanded by Christ in his last  Read more …

We live with a deep secret that sometimes we know, and then not.  That can be very helpful in understanding our faith.  One of the reasons why we struggle with faith is that God’s presence inside us and in our world is rarely dramatic, overwhelming, sensational, something impossible to ignore.  God doesn’t work like that.   Read more …

The word “Rogation” comes from the Latin verb rogare, meaning “to ask”, which reflects the beseeching of God for the appeasement of his anger and for protection from calamities . “Rogation” means “asking”, which is a theme particularly prominent in the Gospel text for this Sunday (St. John 16:23-33).  We call this Sunday “Rogation Sunday”  Read more …

Motherhood, an Awesome Gift from God Today our nation takes an opportunity to celebrate our mothers.  A mother shares in the creative work of God.  God infuses into us, in the womb of our mother, our soul.  The two, God and our mother, are sharing in creation.  They are renewing the face of the earth,  Read more …