What Easter is all about

To Easter glory, the good news of Christ’s resurrection lifts us all April begins the day after Easter. One might, therefore, jump to the conclusion that the month would be a let-down from the 40 days of preparation for the feast and the great liturgies of Holy Week. Quite the …

Living the readings: From the heart of Lent…

To Easter glory, the good news of Christ’s resurrection lifts us all By the time March begins, Lent already has completed 40 percent of its lifespan. Deep into this time of relearning the basics of our faith and intensifying our relationship with God, the Sunday Liturgy of the Word continues …

Living the readings: From strength to strength

God creates us and renews us in power For some reason many people fear the number 13. Those folks are facing a serious problem this year as we navigate the uncharted waters of the 13th year of the 21st century. One of the first problems it presents to the Christian …

Living the readings: The Light has come

Jesus shines the light on himself as the giver of freedom Advent is over; Christmas has come; and, significantly, the Light that was promised is already shining upon us. The fact that the first day of the year is always the Octave Day of Christmas is not by accident. We …

Living the readings: A joyful feast for the soul

By praising God, we can develop Christmas joy By Father Joseph Brando December is not only the first month of the liturgical year; it’s also the busiest. There are seven Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation in the month. To boot, Christmas has four entirely distinct Masses each with its …

Jesus goes ‘all in’

We put our life on the line but the good news is we can’t lose by Father Joseph Brando Going ‘all in’ is an expression that recently has become very popular. Its source is found in certain versions of poker in which one player decides he will close all the …

Living the readings: The radical Jesus

Christ is not ‘right’ or ‘left’ but is deep in his radicalism The Liturgy of the Word for the month of October pictures Jesus as a radical. That is not in the common political usage of the word. Jesus is not radical “right” or “left.” He is radical “deep.” The …

Living the readings: Getting your hands dirty

By Father Joseph Brando Divine law supersedes human tradition, motivates from within The theme of September’s five Sunday Liturgies comes from the opening Gospel. In that passage (Mark 7:1-23), Jesus is asked why his disciples eat their food with dirty hands. Jewish tradition had a strong emphasis on cleanliness; and …

The Bread of Life

 In Christ, we have his Word and flesh in the liturgy and Eucharist August is a straight-forward month. Its four Sundays take the Gospel from the sixth chapter of the Gospel According to John and the New Testament reading from the fourth and fifth chapters of Paul’s Epistle to the …

The extraordinary ordinary

Beautiful examples teach us how to live righteously in this world As opposed to last month when we were blessed with an abundance of such solemnities as Trinity Sunday, Corpus Christi and the feast of John the Baptist, in July we come to the unnamed Sundays in Ordinary Time called …