Posts from August 2024

When you read today’s Gospel, you hear Jesus reminding us that those desires in our hearts are a reflection of our everyday action, words and decisions. But what motivates those desires of our hearts? For some it is greed, jealousy, arrogance, deceit and folly. These desires cause us to take advantage of others rather than be generous; they cause us to lie so as not to have to help another; they cause us to lose friendship rather than be welcoming…

In today’s Gospel, we hear how many of the disciples of Jesus could not fully understand or accept Jesus’ teachings about the Eucharist “to eat His Body and drink His Blood if we want eternal life.” Jesus confronted them on their beliefs. And we saw what many did, they left Jesus and followed their own ways. We might say, we are confronted and questioned by Jesus every Sunday when we have to decide to go to Mass or sleep in…

Some great men and women leave their memoirs to posterity. Others leave libraries and still others leave monuments to their achievements or teachings. Jesus was the only great spiritual figure to leave His “flesh to eat” and “His blood to drink.” These words in today’s Gospel may astonish us as it did his first disciples. But let us understand Jesus’ motivation. He didn’t want to just leave a message but to leave something to concretely demonstrate His love for us.…

A few years ago,we started and ran a very prayerful and successful Elijah Cup program to pray for vocations in the Church. Covid stopped that. We are re-instituting the Elijah Cup program this September. We are all aware of the need for vocations to the priesthood, the diaconate and to the religious life. But sometimes we forget just how powerful praying for an increase in vocations can be. If we pray with the faith of the widow of Zarephath (1…