Pastor’s Column 1 st  Sunday of Advent November 30, 2025   “So too, you must also be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”               Ten years ago, I had the opportunity to visit the World Trade Center Memorial in Manhattan. There, one can find people from all over the world who have come on pilgrimage to learn, to grieve, to remember, to try to make sense of suffering somehow. Mixed in among us were still-grieving relatives, gently rubbin

Pastor’s Column Solemnity of Christ the King November 23, 2025 There are three cycles of gospels for the Solemnity of Christ the King and in many ways, this year's gospel is the most disturbing (Luke 23:35-43). Rather than seeing Christ coming triumphantly at the end of time on the clouds of heaven, he instead is seen reigning from the cross on Calvary. And truth be told, in our brief lives on earth we tend to see Christ more in this visage of suffering than as a tr

Pastor’s Column 33 rd  Sunday in Ordinary Time November 16, 2025 “All that you see here—the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.” Luke 21:5-6 The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem—Jesus would have seen some of these very stones The story of the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world are woven inextricably together in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Each year at this time the liturgy invites us to ref

Pastor’s Column Saint John Lateran November 9, 2025 “He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the area.” (John 2:13-22) How can it be that we find Jesus in this Sunday’s gospel with a whip in his hand, driving people out of the temple? It somehow seems uncharacteristic of him. Usually, we tend to think of Jesus as “gentle and humble of heart” (Matthew 11:28) or as “the good shepherd” (John 10). Thus, it is instructive to see what would drive Jesus to ac