REFLECTIONS TODAY Jesus rebukes his own disciples for preventing those who bring children to him. He receives those who are humble and weak but rejects the arrogant and the proud. In poor communities in Jesus’ time, many children did not make it to their 12th birthday. Parents loved...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The Pharisees raise the age-old question about divorce to test Jesus. The phrase “for any cause whatever” (v 3) refers to the debate between the famous teachers Hillel and Shammai and their disciples. Both schools permitted divorce, but for different reasons. Both based their...
REFLECTIONS TODAY One of the things that plague most communities is the inability to handle confrontation, disagreement, and the mutual accountability when it comes to sin. Community living is very much part of human existence. A Christian formed in the ways of Jesus acknowledges his responsibility...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Mary’s assumption into heaven is best understood in relation to God’s grace bestowed to Mary in view of her participation in God’s plan of salvation. Only Mary, who was born without the stain of original sin, could give birth to Christ, Son of God and Redeemer. Mary is given...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Before the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in AD 70, the Jews throughout the Roman empire were required to pay tax to fund the maintenance of the temple. Male Jews above 19 years of age were to pay a half-shekel temple tax which is equivalent to about two days’ wages. The...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Matthew 14:22-33 After he had fed the people, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and precede him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening he was there alone. Meanwhile...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The mustard seed, according to the historian and naturalist Pliny the Elder, was the most invasive of all garden plants (Natural History, 19.170- 171). It could get over walls, into a neighboring field, and just about everywhere. Once it is sown, it is almost impossible to get the...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The cold-shoulder treatment from Jesus in this reading is completely unexpected. The loving and compassionate Jesus we have known ignores the Canaanite woman! But she is unshakable. She prays persistently, confident that she will be heard. This woman is a foreigner, holding...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Gospel • Matthew 14:22-36 [or 15:1-2, 10-14] Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side of the sea, while he dismissed the crowds. After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening he was there alone....
REFLECTIONS TODAY “The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle of Jesus that is recounted in all four gospels… it was seen as anticipating the Eucharist and the final banquet in the kingdom (Mt 8:11; 26:29)… it looks… to the feeding of Israel with manna in the desert at the time of...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Matthew 17:1-9 Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them,...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Mark’s Gospel presents Herod as revering John to be a holy man. The Baptist’s execution is credited to Herodias’ own hatred and desire (6:19). In Matthew, however, the desire is Herod’s from the beginning. Herod Antipas received a quarter of his father’s (Herod the...
