Spiritual Reflections

About 15 years ago, my cousin married for the second time. She was 65, and the groom was 67. It was his first marriage. The wedding was relatively small —…

Good morning, everyone! Before I get into the heart of today’s Gospel, I want to share something lighthearted I heard many years ago. It goes like this: In recent years…

Back when I was a fairly serious gardener, my overwhelming experience of spring was promise. The apricot tree would wait to bud until after the last hard freeze; the strawberries…

Numbers 6:22-27, Galatians 4:4-7, Luke 2:16-21 We just heard in the first reading about God telling Moses to instruct Aaron and his children just how to bless the people.  A…

1 Samuel 1:20-28         1 John 3:1-24            Luke 2:41-52 The focus of this Sunday in Christmas week is family.  We celebrate the…

This evening, we begin our celebration of the incarnation, God’s choice to live in our midst in the person of Jesus. What a wonderful gift to us. But I would…

“During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country, in haste, to a town of Judah, where she entered the house and greeted Elizabeth.” We have all…

When I worked at the Zoo, I had two favorite animals I liked to use in programs because they had such cool adaptations. One was the hedgehog. Generally, a hedgehog…

When I was about 9 and my mother was pregnant and told me she was carrying a child in her womb, all of a sudden I recognized the word womb…

When I first read these readings several weeks ago, I had a variety of wonderful thoughts related to being wrapped in God’s cloak of justice, continuing the good work that…

Jeremiah 33:14-16 Thessalonians 3:12–4:2 Luke 21:25-36  I struggled with today’s readings and was relieved to find that even the scholarly have difficulties with Advent. Words of several commentators mirrored my…

In 1925 Pope Pius XI declared the last Sunday of the Liturgical Year to be the Feast of Christ the King. He did this to resist the rising fascism of…