REFLECTIONS TODAY Jesus pities the crowds who have been following him. He sees them as troubled and abandoned. They are troubled because no one has yet addressed their needs. They need healing. They need enlightenment. They need consoling words. They need inspiration. They are abandoned because no...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The woman who has been suffering from hemorrhages for 12 years quietly expresses her faith in Jesus. She helps herself and reaches out to touch his cloak. Nobody has told her to do so; never has Jesus healed a person without any articulation of the need and his consent. Yet it...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Luke 10:1-12, 17-20 At that time the Lord appointed seventy-two others whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit. He said to them, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The disciples of John the Baptist come to Jesus to inquire why his disciples are not fasting, while they and the Pharisees do. Fasting is an important religious practice. In Judaism, there are assigned dates when to fast, like Yom Kippur, a day of complete fasting. Jesus explains...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Jesus eats and drinks with Matthew and all other tax collectors and sinners in Matthew’s house. The Pharisees register their objection. They vehemently protest against such act. Jesus should not be conversing with sinners, to avoid misinterpretation. He is willing to waste his...
REFLECTIONS TODAY GOSPEL • Matthew 9:1-8 Jesus surprises those around him, including some scribes, by declaring to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven.” The scribes may hold that there are prophets and “holy men” with the power to cure sickness, but to forgive a person his or her sins...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Simon Peter had always been first in the list of the Twelve Apostles, although in the Gospel of John it was Andrew who followed Jesus first and brought his brother Simon to Jesus. Peter, along with James and John, was witness of such incidents as the transfiguration (Mt 17:1) and...
REFLECTIONS TODAY MATTHEW 8:23-27 The boat of the disciples is often taken as a metaphor, an image of the Church that sails through the turbulent waters of life. The storm can stand for the antagonism and persecution of the believers. Or it can also be a deceptive and interior storm in the form of...
REFLECTIONS TODAY If we try to enumerate what is involved in Discipleship, we can come out with requirements that start with each letter of the word: (D) divine calling, (I) interior life and prayer, (S) service and sacrifice in love (C) commitment to the call, (I) integrity of one’s witness, (P)...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Lk 9:51-62 When the days for his being taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem, and he sent messengers ahead of him. On the way they entered a Samaritan village to prepare for his reception there, but they would not welcome him because the...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is being compared to the heart of a shepherd who goes out in search of the stray and the lost and brings them back to the safety of the sheepfold. As shepherd (as the Good Shepherd in John), Jesus guides his flock — the disciples — in the path of...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Israelite priesthood is reserved to the sons of Levi, and John, the son of the priest Zechariah, was expected to learn the role and functions of the priest at home and in the Jerusalem Temple. But John grew up in the desert surroundings in tune with his vocation as a prophet of...
