Next weekend we have the duty and privilege to take our turn in the Archdiocese to host the Forty Hours’ adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The Forty Hours devotion goes back to the early 1500’s, and was introduced initially to pray before the Lord for deliverance from calamity (invasion, famine,...

The story of our lives is really a library of smaller stories, some short, some long, some more important than others. You could write the library of your life by recalling and recording the main relationships you have had, by remembering all the places you have lived and worked, by...

Words can be ten a penny. That’s perhaps why when we think of God’s Word, or God’s Words, we can be turned off. How can we worship a Word? How can we worship a Book, even a holy book like the Bible? What we want is action, not talk. Now,...

“I worship the ground you stand on.” To say that to someone expresses not only great love, but also submission and self-surrender. It’s like saying, “you are my life, my all, the meaning of my existence; I will do anything you want, so long as I can be yours.” These...

“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” In these few words, John the Baptist sums up the identity and the mission of Jesus Christ. Identity: He is God’s Lamb, his innocent Son. Mission: to take away the sin of the world. If there is...

Arise, shine out, for your light has come! Though night still covers the earth and darkness the peoples, above you the Lord now rises and above you his glory appears. We all need light, as individuals and as communities. There is so much night in modern life, so much darkness...

The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Human flesh is the handiwork of its Creator. It makes visible something of the beauty of the Son of God. It makes external and tangible that internal and intangible beauty of the only-Begotten Son of the Father, himself the perfect copy...

The Mass is the greatest school of prayer because it is the prayer of Christ himself to his Father. Christ’s prayer was and remains the giving of his whole being to the Father. Prayer, you see, is not so much about words or thoughts, but about giving of self in...

This is “Gaudete” Sunday. More precisely, it is “Gaudete in Domino” Sunday. Rejoice, but rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in anticipation of his coming, the coming that has already been and the one that is yet to be. We are still on our journey, but we rejoice because we are...

Throughout the Bible, when people come into the presence of God their immediate reaction is fear. The fear is caused by the sheer holiness of God and by the sense of unworthiness we feel before it. Coming to Mass is to come into the presence of God. That is why,...