Pastor’s Column 7th Sunday Ordinary Time-C February 24, 2019 “Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.” from Luke 6:27-38 Of all Christ’s teachings, learning what it means to forgive someone is among the most crucial, and among the most difficult to understand.As all priests who hear confessions will attest, most of us struggle with what it means to practice this virtue. Before we look at what forgiveness , we must see what unforgiveness is What Fo

Pastor Column 6th Sunday Ordinary Time February 17, 2019 Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude and insult you and renounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven. For their ancestors treated the prophets in the same way. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep. Woe

Pastor’s Column 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time February 10, 2019 Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets for a catch. Luke 5:5 The disciples certainly must have been good fishermen, or they could not have earned a living doing it, but have you ever noticed that they never seem to catch any fish in the gospels? Left to themselves, this Sunday, we find the disciples fishing all night without success; then, but at a word from Jesus, everything changes. Most of us would consider our lives to be most fruitful when we are actively doing something, but what happens when we get sick? When my back went totally out a few years ago, I was

Pastor's Column Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time February 3, 2019 Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered; it does not brood over injuries, it does not rejoice over wrong-doing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13 We all know that Christ has commanded us to love one another. Love is the heart of the gospel: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that all who believe in him might not perish, but might have everlasting life” (John 3:16). We are called to respond

Pastor’s Column 3rd Sunday Ordinary Time January 27, 2019 “Jesus stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll…” Luke 4:16-17 “I saw the dead, both the great and the small, standing in front of his throne, while the book of life was opened, and other books were opened, which recorded what the dead had done in their lives, by which they were judged.” Revelation 20:11-12 In today’s gospel, Jesus unrolls the Isaiah scroll in his home synagogue, where he would have attended since childhood. Any man who had gone through his bar-mitzvah at 13 had the right to stand before the assembly, pick a reading of their choice, proclaim it and then expound. This rol