Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,  The Beatitudes we read in the Gospel this weekend are rightly compared with the Ten Commandments. Just as Moses went up Mt. Sinai and received from God the two stone tablets with the Law written on them, so Jesus goes up the mountain and teaches the Beatitudes to the crowd. Moses was the messenger entrusted to bring the law from God to the people. While Jesus is certainly a messenger, we can also see that his way of conveying the message is different than that of Moses. When Jesus goes up the mountain, notice…read more

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, It was something of a throw-away line, unplanned and in the end not especially important, but it came out of my mouth and has stayed with me since I said it last week. What can I say? Sometimes I listen my own homilies. Speaking about our sacramental life in light of the liturgical year, I mentioned that our parents, from the day of our baptism, take us to Mass, and those early years attending Mass with our families lay a foundation for the rest of our spiritual lives. Eventually, I said, we learn to…read more

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, If you have not had a chance to visit the church since last Sunday, the removal of Christmas decorations might seem jarring, just as that spot once occupied by your Christmas tree seems rather bare once the tree has found its way to the attic or the curb. The comparatively spare decorations now in the church indicate that we have entered the brief period of Ordinary Time that precedes the great fast of Lent. “Ordinary” of course, is a relative term, for it refers not to our common usage “normal” but to “ordinal” or…read more

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, The great feast of the Epiphany of the Lord always brings me back to a powerful moment in my seminary formation. In my office, you will find photographic evidence of the Pope listening to me on Epiphany in 2006. At least that’s how I’ve always liked to phrase it. However, knowing his theology and having witnessed his approach to all things liturgical, I am confident that Pope Benedict XVI would say he was not listening to me, but rather to the words of the Prophet Isaiah. Which, admittedly, is far more important. I was…read more