Pastor’s Column 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time October 30, 2022 “Come down Zacchaeus, for today I must stay in your house.” Luke 19:1-10 Jesus wants to stay with me today. Can I hear him asking? Will I recognize his request to come in? How does he do this? Zacchaeus was a tax collector. In last week’s gospel, another tax collector considered himself to be such a bad sinner that he beat his breast and could not even look up while praying in the temple. Tax collectors worked for

Pastor’s Column 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time October 23, 2022 When going in for a job interview, we naturally hope to impress the person doing the hiring. We try to learn what it is the company is looking for and how to approach them in a way that will hopefully be to their liking. Yet when we approach God in prayer, do we stop to consider what pleases God when we speak to him? Of course, the Lord is always glad to hear from us, but certain ways of praying are more attractive

Pastor’s Column 29th Sunday Ordinary Time October 16, 2022 Israel is battling a grave enemy, Amalek, in this Sunday’s first reading from Exodus 17:8-13. God instructs Moses to stretch out his hands in prayer over the battle. As long as Moses does so, Israel wins the battle. The only problem was that Moses’ arms began to get tired, and as he lowers them, Amalek begins to win. Israel has a big problem. What is the solution? Moses needed help. The Lord wanted Moses and the Israe

Pastor’s Column 28th Sunday Ordinary Time October 9, 2022 “One of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice;” Luke 17:15 It is interesting how extreme circumstances can sometimes help us to put aside our differences. A change of plans, even a disaster, even leprosy, can be an opportunity to give thanks to God. When we do this, he frequently opens the floodgates of blessings and peace to us in our disasters and tragedies, great and small, bec

Pastor’s Column 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time October 2, 2022 “How long, O Lord? I cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not intervene. Why do you let me see ruin? Why must I look at misery?” Habakkuk 1:2 It’s funny, but people have been praying with words like these for a long, long time. This prayer to God which I have quoted above was written well over 2700 years ago, and yet one might as well have uttered them last week in response to some act of violence or tragedy in