Answering God’s Call
A reflection on the readings for Sunday, January 14, 2024 — The Second Sunday in Ordinary Time We have all seen photos of ourselves when we were younger. Many of us who are younger have even had the opportunity to...
Tagged: Peter
Jesus is Lord
A reflection on the readings of Sunday, August 27, 2023 — The 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time Friends, Jesus is Lord. What an audacious statement to make in Caesarea Philippi! A city known for its temple to the Pan God and...
Suffering: A Painful Privilege
A reflection on the Readings of Sunday, April 30, 2023 — The Fourth Sunday of Easter. Click here for the audio version. There are a few things that are common to all of humanity. We all feel hunger, for example....
The Sanctuary for the Broken and Shamed
This is a reflection on the readings for May 3, 2022 – the Third Sunday of Easter Kintsugi, or Kintsukori, is a 15th century Japanese art of repairing broken pottery and transforming it into a new work of art with...
Beyond the Breaking Point
A homily for the twenty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time (Cycle B). Readings available from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. This is the custom of the simple: they ever find fault with the more subtle doctrines and foolishly tear in...
You Are Peter
Today is the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A), and today’s readings are especially important to Catholics. Today’s Gospel passage (Mt 16:13-20) contains the words whereby Christ entrusted authority over the Church to the apostle Peter: And so I...
Peter exercised his authority from the beginning
“From the Church’s beginning Peter exercised decisive authority at the highest level. This exercise, accepted and recognized by the community, is historical confirmation of the words Christ spoke regarding the mission and power of Peter.” — Pope Saint John Paul...
“Whoever succeeds to the Chair of Peter”
Tomorrow, July 18, 2020, marks the 150th Anniversary of the promulgation of the 1870 document Pastor Aeternus, the First Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ. This document formally spelled out the Church’s teaching on the nature of...
“Feed my sheep”: A power ordered to service
“The words, ‘Feed my sheep’ show Jesus’ intention to guarantee the future of the Church he founded under the direction of a universal shepherd–Peter–to whom he said that by his grace he will be ‘rock’ and will have ‘the keys...
Peter, the Rock and Cornerstone of Christ’s Church
“The word ‘rock’ expresses a permanent, subsisting being; therefore, it applies to the person, rather than to one of his necessarily transitory acts. Jesus’ subsequent words confirm this when he said that the gates of the netherworld, the powers of...
Recognize and Desist
In talking with friends who are having trouble accepting the teachings of Pope Francis, I have learned not to discount the serious and legitimate concerns they have. They are torn. On the one hand, they know that the papacy is...
To whom shall we go?
“Do you also want to leave?” That’s the question that Jesus poses to Peter and the apostles at the end of the Gospel reading today. In light of the horrors detailed in the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report of the unimaginable...
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