Wedding feast John begins his gospel with a series of summons spread over seven days, meant to suggest a new creation that's unfolding parallel to the one that's described in the book of Genesis. It begins with the call of John the Baptist as light breaks into the world. And the wedding feast of Cana falls on the last day, paralleling the creation of the first human beings. But as we remember it, their beginning ended sadly with them failing to trust and losing the garden. Th

Holy Saturday What happens on Holy Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Resurrection on Sunday? On Holy Saturday, while Jesus' body rests in the grave, his spirit departs and goes to the realm of the dead, the place known as Sheol in Hebrew. He goes to show his authority over all of creation, even over the spirit's health and prison there. But he also goes as a final act of solidarity with all the sufferings of the world. So that human beings could never say to God: 'you

The healing of the paralytic We often think of those living in the 1st century Palestine as being simple people governed by naive beliefs and superstitions. But their view of the world is not that different from the way we often view events in our world. Many people today have a very real belief in luck, fate, as if power over creation operates arbitrarily. And our goal is to somehow put ourselves in the path of such power. We become victims of superstition, and we're not muc

Creation of light John chose this wonderful opening phrase 'in the beginning' to connect our minds and hearts to where the story all began in Genesis. The words, the images are intentional because we're meant to see the connection between that first creative act of God and the incarnation of God. The creative word of God brought into being the light of all existence and the creative word of God, the logos entered into created existence in the person of Jesus. Every person is

The Good Shepherd Karl Rahner said we do not have souls that sometimes get restless, but that our souls themselves are lonely, caverns thirsting for the infinite, deep wells of restlessness. Because of this we often find it difficult to concentrate, even to sleep at night. We go through life-feeling, we're missing out on something, that life is more exciting fulfilling for others than it is for me. Our achievements rarely satisfy us because we're too much aware of what we hav

Touch the hem All of us in different ways are called to to give life to others. But often we end up wounded or we become cold, unable to give life to others. We're no longer whole. And that limits how we can love and especially how fully we can give life. And that's what happens in the gospel is we meet this woman who her capacity to be able to give life has been hemorrhaging away, making it impossible for her to give life to others. What Jesus does is He gives back to her th

Christ’s Descent into Hades When someone we know dies, we commit their body to the earth. It's a way of reminding ourselves that we've...

Palm Sunday Holy week is not far away. We approach these holy days hungry for a million small and large, ordinary and extraordinary...

Jesus the healer How can we best understand Jesus as a healer? We might begin by taking a look at the word Catholic . It comes from the...

Zacchaeus In a world that often focuses on superficial appearances, the profound act of truly seeing someone can lead to transformative...