The other day I was discussing this week’s readings with a few people and someone said that he though that Jesus must have been in a bad mood that day. In my house “them’s fighting words”. If you want to start and argument just begin by suggesting that someone is in a “ bad mood” ...

Raise your hand if you have never asked that question? How many times are we supposed to forgive someone? And if we cannot remember asking that ourselves, how many times have we been asked that question by others? There is no need to paint the entire scenario, but it usually ends with a tear-stained face, ...

Let me start by saying that my mother turns 96 this coming November. This has significance for two reasons, first, she clearly had me very, very late in her life (not really) and second, if she keeps going the way that she is going she will outlive me by a lot. If you were to ...

There is this story about a Catholic priest and Jewish rabbi, from a small Colorado town, that became very close friends. Every Sunday afternoon, after the priests last service, the two would get together and go fishing at their favorite little fishing hole. This went on for years until one day a protestant minister came ...

Before we go on any further I feel that I have to admit something to you. We may or may not know enough well enough but I feel that I have to get this off my chest. Last night, I went and saw the movie Barbie. I know that this is a lot for me ...

Did you know that there are 41 separate parables in the New Testament? There are no parables in John and of the gnostic gospels Luke has the most with 28. It is also interesting to note that Luke has the most number of parables that are only found in his writings. While almost all of ...

On the day of my ordination, my mother (who happened to be 94 at the time) walked up to the bishop and said, “are you sure about this one?” Only your mother can get away with something like that. Sort of like in today’s gospel. Can you imagine how embarrassed James and John were when ...

Did you see the sunset last night? It was one of those wispy, pink cloud, perfect temperature, hummingbird dancing sunsets. So beautiful that you want to just stop what you are doing and watch everything around you. But did we stop? I mean for more than just a minute, did we stop and give thanks ...

The past week has been so beautiful. The nights are still a little bit chilly, and the amazing snow this past season and early rains have made everything so lush. We had some friends visiting over the holiday and they commented on how amazingly green everything was. It was as if, so they said, everything ...

Today’s gospel story has to be the most underwhelming account in the bible. Here you have one of the most significant events in the New Testament and it is presented as all so much “ho, hum”. Jesus calls his disciples together, who knows how many that was, say twenty-five of so, and from them selects ...

Years ago, Mary and I traveled with my parents through Europe. My father had been born in Cologne, along the Rhine river so part of our travels brought us to a small village, along the river, that had a huge vineyard. A cousin of my father’s lived there and we stayed to visit. At dinner ...

As a parent, one of the things that I hated the most was when my kids played lawyer. Do you know what I am talking about? It was when they tried to use the finer points of the law to argue a situation. Did you touch your sister? Noooooo , I didn’t touch her. What ...

If you needed any reminder that next week is Holy Week all that you had to do was read the Gospel from that past few days. The imminent death of Jesus is mentioned in almost every Gospel. The message appears to be that a very vocal segment of the local population appears to be very ...

Remember how hard it was three years ago? We couldn’t go out, couldn’t visit friends, we were having trouble dealing with all of the various restrictions. So, we turned to the one thing that could bring us comfort and consolation and companionship. We turned to binge watching miniseries. Admit it, we are not about judging ...

In exodus 20 verses 1- 17 are listed the ten commandments. We all know them. We can all conjure up the image of Charlton Heston standing with the two stone tables, one in each arm, after coming down from Mount Sinai. While we may or may not be able to recite all 10, there might ...

To say that I am a procrastinator would be unfair. I do not procrastinate but I do get easily distracted. The first thing that I do Saturday morning is to come up with a plan for the day. Then I collect my materials, and tools and head off. Somewhere between “heading off” and getting there ...

Have you ever seen the show, Myth Busters? I used to love to watch that show. They would always try to prove, or disprove, the most ridiculous things. Well actually the myths weren’t that ridiculous it was the way that they would go about the investigation that was ridiculous. If you could solver the premise ...

A number of years ago, Stephen Covey wrote a book called the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The third habit was that, “the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing”. There were a lot of “main things” in that habit but you get the point. In order to be effective ...

What an interesting dialogue in today’s Gospel. Just to be sure, Jesus is driving out demons (I guess that was just something that Jesus would do on a regular basis … and for the record, if I walked up and this guy were driving out demons, I think that I would be dumb struck! I ...

Raise your hand if you have never asked that question? How many times are we supposed to forgive someone? And if we cannot remember asking that ourselves, how many times have we been asked that question by others? There is no need to paint the entire scenario, but it usually ends with a tear-stained face, ...

Let me start by saying that these purple garments and fine linens are provided for me and has no relation to the first verse in today’s gospel. This has nothing to do with today’s message, I am just saying. The question is, “what would it take for you to change your mind?” If you were ...

Let me start by admitting that I had to look up to see what a phylactery is. Not that I feel that I should be up to date on all Jewish traditions, but I just had to know what it was that these people were widening. For the record, a phylactery is a small box ...

A friend once told me that God answers every one of our prayers, and … he added … He never says “no”. We were having a long conversation about what is wrong with the world and power of prayer when he blurted out that God never says “no”. “Wait a minute”, I replied, “what about ...

Towards the end of the daily breviary there is always a place to say the Lord’s prayer. There are any of a number of introductions that can be said but the one that we are all most familiar with is; “now let us pray as Christ the Lord has taught us.” This teaching comes from ...

Years ago, I used to work in marketing and business development for a large architectural company. We were always told that there were three things that influenced a person’s decision making, they were called the three “p’s”, and they were; Pleasure, Power, Prestige. The rational went something like this: If we could convince a prospective ...

Quite a few years ago, had a job helping with marketing for a large national architectural design firm. The point was for me to come up with ways for us to convince people, prospective clients, to hire us. Words were very important. We used to talk a lot about our “elevator speech”. The elevator speech ...

Did everyone have a great night “Trick or Treating”? As a child, I remember looking forward to last night for weeks. Part of it was the candy, the idea was to store up enough candy to make it all the way to Thanksgiving. If we made it that long, we were good because Advent and ...

For some reason a lot of my childhood is remembered through songs. It should come as no surprise that I know all of the words for the theme song of the TV show Mr. Ed. Did you know that the song has four verses? And I use to know all the words, more out of ...

There is an interesting book that I have often made reference to written by CS Lewis. The book is titled the Screwtape letters and it is an interesting, fictional, insight into the workings and the plannings of the devil. Recently I recommended it and loaned a copy to a friend. It had been a while ...

Here is a little bit of ancient history, every town and city in the Near East in ancient times was normally encircled by ramparts and defended by towers and fortified gates. Reports describing the large, fortified cities of the Canaanites struck fear into the Israelites. The walls of a city were usually of large dimensions, ...

A good friend of mine, the pastor of the church that our children grew up in, use to have cute names for some of the “less famous” Sundays in the church calendar. There were the big ones, that already had names like Easter Sunday, and Trinity Sunday but he liked like to talk about, what ...

Today is the feast of St. Luke the evangelist. He was a friend and companion of St. Paul and is best known for having been a Gentile Christian. Tradition has him as being a native of Antioch and a physician. His two sections of the New Testament, the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of ...

The other day I was having a conversation with this year’s confirmation class about the nature of God. Things like; what does God look like. Is God tall or short, young or old, father or mother. For some reason we got really hung up on how old God was. Being around since the beginning of ...

Have you even contemplated the “ultimate Question of Life”? The question that asks all, begs all, encompasses all … the “Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything”. In the novel written by Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy the super computer “Deep Thought” contemplated this question for 7.5 million years and came up ...

The Pharisees are referred to in the various readings in the new testament. Today we heard Jesus say: “Woe to you Pharisees! You pay tithes of mint and of rue and of every garden herb, but you pay no attention to judgment and to love for God. These you should have done, without overlooking the ...

In today’s first reading there is an interesting phrase. There is a reference to the “entire law”. Interesting because it got me thinking of how we perceive the law. Any law; let’s take traffic laws for example; when the sign says “Speed limit 55” we perceive that to be any speed between 56 and 64 ...

What would you do if you won the lottery? The Colorado Mega Millions jackpot is up to $445 Million. That is a lot of money. Just imagine what you could do with that much cash. A number of years ago there was a movie with Nicholas Cage and Bridget Fonda titled “it could happen to ...

No doubt we have all played the superpower game. You know, that game where you sit around talk about what superpower you would have if were a superhero. You would be able to fly, or have super strength, or have x-ray vision … it’s a fun game to play, fun to think about the possibilities ...

Today is the feast of the archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. Yes, in case you were wondering that is a real thing. Part one, section two, chapter one, paragraph 5 of the Catholic Catechism there is a whole section on the angels. From “Their existence”, to “who they are”, to Christ “with His Angels”. There ...

Two things immediately strike me about today’s gospel; The first is; did James and John really think that they had the power to “call down fire from heaven?” I mean, I get it, right before today’s reading Jesus called a demon out of a child with a word. So, maybe they thought that if He ...

Today is the memorial of our Lady of Sorrows. For a while there were two feasts in honor of the Sorrowful Mother: one going back to the 15th century, the other to the 17th century. For a while both were celebrated by the universal Church: one on the Friday before Palm Sunday, the other in ...

This past weekend I was watching part of a football game when a defensive player caught an interception. It was one of those catches where it just fell into his hands. There was no diving catch, no one hand acrobatics, just a pitch and a catch. He went down immediately and was touched down by ...

If you have ever noticed, the arrangement of the readings are always the same. On Sundays, we hear from the old testament, then (typically) from the letters and then from the Gospels. The daily readings mix that up a bit in that the first reading is either the Old Testament or letters and then we ...

There is a joke that goes something like this: a man is in a traffic accident and is very close to death. He leaves his body and goes to heaven where he sees God. God assures him that he is not going to die just then, but suggested that, while he was waiting to go ...

Today’s gospel story has to be the most underwhelming account in the bible. Here you have one of the most significant events in the New Testament and it is presented as all so much “ho, hum”. Jesus calls his disciples together, who knows how many that was, say twenty-five of so, and from them selects ...

This morning’s gospel reading is Luke’s account of the calling of apostles James, John, Andrew and Peter. In the style that we come to love about Luke it is filled with drama: While Jesus was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, many people pushed to get near Him. They wanted to hear the Word of ...

Today’s gospel has a very interesting line towards the end. It went, “What is it about His word?” Jesus had just performed an amazing miracle. He drove a demon out of a man just by telling it to come out. “Jesus rebuked him and said, “Be quiet! Come out of him!” Then the demon threw ...

If I were to tell you of a story of a boy who was conceived through the intercession of an angel, to parents who were both visited by an angle, and who started his public ministry by going off into the desert, you would immediately know who I was talking about. If I went on ...

Stay awake He didn’t say, be ready, or keep watch, or stand guard. He said “stay awake”. The image of that warning is very interesting to me. You see, ever since I was very little I have always found it very easy to fall asleep. In high school I took a PE thing on meditation ...

One of the amazing things about reading scripture is finding the subtle messages and personal lessons that lay hidden in the word. Today’s gospel was not one of those times. There was nothing hidden there, it was all up front and in our face. This story is not about a wedding feast it is about ...

This is a gospel that has to be thought about for a little while. A lot of times I will read the daily Gospel, go for a hike, and come back with my reactions sorted out. This one was a two hike Gospel. It begins with a challenge, offers some perspective and ends with a ...

Let me ask you to do something; I know, we all hate it when the priest or deacon asks for participation but humor me and close your eyes. Now, I want for you to picture Jesus. Conjure up the first image that comes to mind. Can you see Him? Now open your eyes. Did you ...

Raise your hand if you have never asked that question? How many times are we supposed to forgive someone? And if we cannot remember asking that ourselves, how many times have we been asked that question by others? There is no need to paint the entire scenario, but it usually ends with a tear-stained face, ...

Remember when you were five … well maybe not, but think back to the last 5-year-old that you have met and think about one of the most important things about being 5, it was wanting with all of your might to be 6. It was so important that we were older that we would count ...

Do you remember the phrase, “and forsaking all else”? It came to me while reading today’s scripture and I was thinking of Matthew chapter 13, verse 44 – 46. The story of the “pearl of great price”. The passage goes like this, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. ...

Have you ever been caught in a situation where you could not decide what was the right things to do? What is the expression, “Dammed if you do, or dammed if you don’t”? Last week I was in a conversation that involved the question of what to do when a street person asks you for ...

How many of us here are saints? Or, perhaps a better question, is how many of us here are going to be saints? When we talk about saints what are the first things that come to mind? Old? Holy? Boring? How about “guys that lived a long time ago”? Would it surprise you to know ...

How many times would it take? How many times would it take for you to believe the unbelievable? You name it, winning the lottery? … Seeing your child for the first time? … seeing a full moon so bright that you can read by? But are those really unbelievable? They are amazing, almost a once ...

The past few daily gospel readings, really since about two Sundays ago, have been sort of hard to listen to. This theme of, “do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth” seems a bit incongruous. On the one hand we have come to expect a message of love for one ...

We don’t realize it but as Catholics, attending Sunday services, we hear about 75% of the New Testament over a three year cycle. Not bad for a community that is typically discounted as not paying enough attention to the bible. And, in that 75% there are probably a couple of scripture passages that we are ...

The past week has been so beautiful. The nights are still a little bit chilly, and the rains have made everything so lush. We had some friends visiting over the holiday and they commented how amazingly green everything was. It was as if, so they said, everything was a shade of neon green. This is ...

Here is an interesting question for you to think about: what is the most important part of the Jesus’s message? If you had to choose what was the most important verse, phrase, parable, what would it be? How about; “Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven”. That is a good one, it makes sense, and ...

So, let’s replay the events of today’s gospel. It has been a busy week. First there was the curing of the Centurion’s Servant. He came running up to Jesus and said, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully.” He said to him, “I will come and cure him.” The centurion said in ...

The other day I was driving around the Montrose area and my cell phone stopped working. I couldn’t believe it, I hadn’t gone over any steep hill, hadn’t gone around any sharp corner, hadn’t gone under any underpasses it just stopped getting signal. So, I did want any rational thinking, well educated, tech savvy person ...

Isn’t it interesting that we find it very easy to think of Jesus as an infant in swaddling clothes or our savior on the cross but almost never anything else? The same is true for John the Baptist. When we picture him, we probably see this scruffy looking guy with knotted hair, and tangled beard ...

The gospel of Matthew is very interesting. It is one of the three Gnostic gospels, meaning that it has similar stories to Mark and Luke, it was written about the same time as the gospel of Luke, somewhere between 85 and 90 AD and it is the gospel that was clearly written for a Jewish ...

Here is an interesting hypothetical question; What would you ask Jesus if you had the chance face to face? There are numerous instances in the bible where different individuals had that opportunity; the rich young man ask how he could attain eternal life, the disciples asked who would be greater in heaven, Martha asked Jesus ...

The other day I was talking with our first communion students, (They are receiving the sacrament this coming Sunday) and we were discussing the concept of a good act of contrition verses bad act of contrition. When you are 10 years old the concept is actually pretty easy to convey; are you sorry because you ...

There was a famous commercial, back in the 70’s by a hair care product called Faberge Organic shampoo. The tv image started with the head shot of one young woman saying how much she liked the product and how she told two friends. She then said that they told two friends, and they told two ...

Today is the feast of the Visitation. It is the second of the joyful mysteries and the one that use to feel a bit out of place to me. After all the first Joyful mystery is the Annunciation, clearly very important. After all it involved an appearance of an Angel and Virgin conception. After something ...

As you heard in Father’s introduction, today we celebrate the feast of the Ascension of our Lord. The day on which Jesus left this earth and ascended back into heaven. For such an important feast day today’s gospel seems almost anti-climactic. It just says, “As He blessed them he parted from them and was taken ...

"You brought confusion on the guards at your tomb, but joy to your disciples." This was a verse that I came across the other day, and it made me stop. For a really long time. "You brought confusion on the guards at your tomb, but joy to your disciples." In Matthew 27 and 28 it ...

It appears as though I have been living with a misconception. For some reason I was under the impression that sheep were dumb animals. It turns out they are actually very intelligent. Did you that they have very impressive cognitive ability and just like humans, they form deep and lasting bonds with each other, they ...

We all are familiar with the story of the exodus. After their time of slavery in the Egypt, Moses gets the pharaoh to let the Jewish people go free (after a little of persuading in the form of Blood, Frogs, Bugs, Wild Animals, Pestilence, Boils, Hail, Locust, Darkness, and Death). And off they go. The ...

What if I told you that there are three types of love? At least that is true in the Greek language. At the time that the gospels were written the dominant language of the translations was Greek, so these three types of love are important. The Greek words for love are agape, phileo and eros. ...

He does not ration his gift of the Spirit. This is an interesting time in the Church calendar. We are still in the Easter time. Still living in the revelation of the resurrection, but not with something directly in front of us to be walking towards. We Catholics are great pilgrims. We walk the 40 ...

It is so difficult for us to imagine the things of heaven. “If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.” ...

Does anyone here know what are the only man-made things in heaven? By a show of hands, how many think that they know the answer? For those that don’t know, there was a hint in today’s gospel. It was what Jesus used to identify himself to the apostles. Remember? It was also the identifier that ...

One of the interesting things about the bible is that it has so many styles of literature all under one cover. There is poetry, history, laws, lessons and stories. Today’s Gospel is a good example of that last one. This morning we find ourselves toward the end of the Gospel of Luke, actually both yesterday ...

It always amazes me to think of how the disciples did not get that Jesus was the Lord. Maybe it was a different time. Maybe back in 29 AD people were cured of blindness every day. Perhaps the lame got up and walked around every Tuesday. And Lepers were cleaned every other Thursday, but I ...

“Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” Not your typical dinner conversation. Here you are for the biggest feast of the year, sitting around the table with all of your friends, those that you have spent almost 3 years with and out of nowhere your host says, “one of you ...

Recently I have been reminded of the 1971 opera by Andrew Lloyd Weber Jesus Christ SuperStar. Imagine, it was first performed over 50 years ago. In it there is the scene of Palm Sunday where Jesus triumphantly enters Jerusalem to the crowd singing and waving palm branches. The song goes: Hosanna, hey sanna, sanna sanna ...

There is a story of a little boy that comes home from school troubled by the day’s lessons. After dinner he goes up to his father and explains that the teacher was trying to explain the difference between theory and reality, and he didn’t get it. “Hmmmm”, his father says, “that’s a tough one. The ...

Every once in a while, someone will ask me what is the best way to read the bible. There are many schools of thought on this topic. Although the most commonly held rule of thumb is that you should not start at the beginning and attempt to read straight through. The primary reason is that ...

The hardest thing about putting my thoughts down on today’s gospel was deciding where to begin. Is today’s lesson about how much God loves us or how much we are supposed to love others? Somehow starting with 77 times or even 70 times 7 doesn’t seem to do either question justice. That would be somewhere ...

Why? Or maybe I should say, Whyyyyy??? Having raised three children I can attest that the first word that they learned was “no”, but the second one, that did not come very far behind it was “why”. Good morning sleepy head, time to get up”, “why”. “Because the sun is up, it is a beautiful ...

Let me start by saying that these purple garments and fine linens are provided for me and has no relation to the first verse in today’s gospel. This has nothing to do with today’s message, I am just saying. The question is, “what would it take for you to change your mind?” If you were ...

Let me start by admitting that I had to look up to see what a phylactery is. Not that I feel that I should be up to date on all Jewish traditions, but I just had to know what it was that these people were widening. For the record, a phylactery is a small box ...

When dealing with children I have no doubt you have run into the “are you serious” questions. You know, those time when they ask you a question and your first response is “are you serious?” These are not rhetorical questions, like “wow, do you see that sunset”. I mean “are you serious” questions like “do ...

A good friend of mine loves to tell the story of the first time that he visited the Grand Canyon. He took the mule ride down into the canyon to stay overnight at the Phantom Ranch. He had heard how amazing the sunset was when you got down to the bottom. He bought a bunch ...

Today’s gospel reading is an interesting one, and one that needs a little bit of context to be fully appreciated. It is from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 9. This chapter is close to the middle of Mark and begins with the transfiguration of Jesus. As a matter of fact, this entire section of that ...

On a number of occasions, I have expressed how much I can relate to Peter. That is clearly up to a point, and today is beyond that point. Today is the feast of the Chair of Peter, the first Pope and foundation of the church. We will get to the chair in a minute, but ...

Saint Luke really knows how to get to the point, “Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.” It’s so simple This past weekend we had a group visiting us in Crested Butte from Denver. There were 25 young adult Catholics ...

You have to wonder what was going through Peter’s mind? Today’s gospel story is recorded in two placed in the bible, with two slightly different accounts. Here in Mark 8, Jesus is telling his disciples that He, the Son of Man, must suffer greatly” to which Peter quietly takes Him aside to “rebuke” Him. Seems ...

Most of us are familiar with a piece of prose commonly referred to as the serenity prayer. If asked to quote it we might get it wrong but we can muddle through the general idea. It says something about not getting too upset with things that we cannot control. The prayer was originally written by ...

There is a wonderful song by Regina Spector called, “Laughing with”. If you haven’t heard it, not to worry, my youngest daughter tells me that I have terrible taste in music, so this could be the reason. But I have always loved this song, because of her voice, because of the music and because of ...

When you were a child did you ever play the “what would you do” game? It wasn’t necessarily a formal game, just part of a passing conversation. You and some friends would be walking in the woods, and someone would say, “what would you do if a bear jumped out right now?”. Or you would ...

A number of times I have referred to the two students that are preparing for their first communion this coming spring. One of the first classes that we had was on the subject of prayer, those that they knew, those that they did not know that they knew and those that they didn’t know but ...

Today’s gospel is another instance where we see Mark and Luke telling the same story from their very different perspectives. At face value, they both tell the same story. Jesus calls His disciples together and sends them forth. Simple enough, except that Mark has him sending forth the 12 and Luke has him sending the ...

The events described in today’s gospel must have been amazing. Think of it in the perspective our communities. Imagine if we heard of this teacher that drew hundreds of people to a gathering in Montrose. He crossed the Blue Mesa and preached over by the Iola Boat ramp where he healed a woman just by ...

In this morning’s announcement you heard our lector welcome us to the 4th Sunday in ordinary time … that means that we are already at the end of January and next week begins the month of February… February, the month that holds the most dreaded holiday of the entire year. Some of you are nodding, ...

Some time ago I had the chance to attend a week long youth retreat that had chosen as their inspiration Isaiah 9:2. The verse that goes, “the people who walk in darkness, will see a great light”. The first day of the retreat they gave us a number of things for the week including a ...

Yesterday afternoon I met with two students that are preparing for their first communion. In that particular class we were discussing the sacrament of reconciliation. Some time during the beginning of Lent they will celebrate this sacrament, so we were discussing forgiveness. The example that we used was the parable of the prodigal son. We ...

Today’s second reading is probably known to each one of us. We have probably all even heard a version of it outside of church. It is the perfect coach’s “not everyone can be the superstar” pep talk, or the perfect parent “we love you just as much as we love your big brother” talk, or ...

The gospel that I just read is from the tenth chapter of Matthew. It is when Jesus sends out the apostles to “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons.” He adds, “Freely you have received; freely give”. For 42 versus, in that chapter, Jesus tells them what to ...

There is a story of a young man that decided to attend the Sunday service at the local church. He was very nervous, seeing that he had not been to a Sunday service in quite a while, so he took out his best pair of jeans, and white collared shirt and washed them so that ...

One of the books that we were required to read in high school was the Portrait of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde. The basic story was of an exceptionally vain young man that sits to have a portrait painted of himself. He is immediately struck by his own beauty and wishes that he would never ...

My brother has three children, two girls and a boy. All three are great kids and we were fortunate enough to know them while they were growing up. Allan was the middle child and a very typical boy. He would get into his share of trouble partially because he was the forgotten middle child and ...

The other day, I was in a class for two students that are studying to receive the sacrament of the Eucharist this April. We were talking about prayer, and I asked them if they knew any prayers …. after some thought they said “no”. “Really, you don’t know any prayers?” They thought about it for ...

There is a show on television that is hosted by magicians Penn & Teller that is called “Fool us”. It is billed as a magic competition television program in which magicians perform tricks in front of the American magician-comedian duo. The point is to Fool them, to perform a magical trick that even Penn & ...

When I was a kid the feast of the Epiphany was a big deal. We would typically take the figures of the three kings out of the nativity box on Thanksgiving and set them on their journey. They would start in the basement, and head for the place where we would always put the Christmas ...

When the Deacon is assisting the priest during the celebration of the mass there is a particular point, while the bread and wine are being prepared, that he says a particular blessing. After he pours the wine into the chalice, he follows up with a drop or two of water and says, “by the mystery ...

Do you remember that 1960’s TV show Dragnet? Sargent Joe Friday would follow “an actual case from official police files. From beginning to end, from crime to punishment, Dragnet a story of your police force in action!” There was a quote that Sargent Friday was famous for: “we want the facts ma’am, just the ...

Today is the feast of the Holy Innocents. Sometimes referred to as “Childermas”, the feast celebrates what were believed to be the deaths of the first Christian martyrs. The actual number of these little martyrs is much debated. In the Syrian Christian litany of Saints, the number is as high as 64,000. In the byzantine ...

If you are anything like me, you know the origins and the meaning of you name. Out of academic interest more than anything else, not that I was ever going to change my name, but I wanted to know where it came from. The name Edwin comes from the old English elements “ead” meaning blessed ...

For more than 700 years we have had the rosary as a wonderful example of prayerful reflections focusing on the Incarnation, Passion and triumph of Jesus. As tradition has it, St. Dominic was visited by the Mother Mary, outside of Provence France, who told him to add 15 lessons, the mysteries, to the tradition of ...

When I was little, we used to spend most of our summers visiting my mother’s family in South Texas. We lived outside Washington DC and right after school let out, we would pack all of our stuff into the family station wagon and drive the 1,700 miles to the Rio Grande Valley. My mother comes ...

When you begin to study the bible, you find that not only are the 4 gospels written in slightly different styles, but they are also written to slightly different audiences. Matthew was written to the Jewish converts to Christianity. While Mark was written to the non-Jews that were embracing the teachings of Jesus. You can ...

Who of us, having had to deal with children, has not heard today’s gospel in real life? Just name the situation, clean up your room, go finish your homework, stop hitting your sister. And how many times is the first response, “I will not”? This seems to be the universal experience from parents to teachers ...

In 1955, the very popular TV show the Honeymooners had an episode that was titled “twas the night before Christmas”. The show opens on the night before Christmas with Ralph and Alice hiding their presents for each other in their small apartment. As the evening progresses people come and go dropping off gifts and exchanging ...

Growing up, I was fortunate to live in a neighborhood that had a lot of boys my own age. There were eight of us that were all about the same age. We seemed to do everything together, especially in the summer. Where we lived was not far from a county park and a large lake. ...

Yesterday morning, Carmen sent out her regular bulletin email bast and included a one-page document on the origins and traditions of the First Saturday Devotion. The practice of reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the First Saturday was initiated in Rovigo, Italy, by Mary Inglese, a Servite tertiary in 1889. She started among ...

Last week we went to North Carolina for thanksgiving. Our daughter lives there with our two grandchildren and it was decided that we would all go there this year. Our son in law is deployed to Turkey this year so she is a single parent for the next few months and we though that it ...

This morning’s gospel reading is Matthew’s account of the calling of apostles James, John, Andrew and Peter. As we expect from Mathew, it is short and to the point. Jesus says come and they drop what they are doing and follow Him. In the version from the Gospel of St. Luke the story is a ...

This evening we start our bible study on the season of advent. Tonight’s subject will be the prophesies that foretold the coming of the savior. I have not given anything away by sharing this information, but if you come tonight, you can look surprised when I introduce the topic. As I was researching the subject, ...

When I was very young the story of Zacchaeus fascinated me. In school we sang a song about him. It went something like this; Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he. He climbed up a sycamore tree for the lord he wanted to see. And as the savior passed that ...

46 years to build one project? And I thought that it took a long time to get something built here in Crested Butte. Imagine the contractors’ fees on that project. The temple of Jerusalem, that the individuals referred to in the Gospel, was constructed by Herod. It was started in 20 BC and finished right ...

It is a little hard for me to admit this to you, but my wife and I have trouble listening to each other. Listening is not the right word, maybe it is just that we don’t always hear each other. It is not that we don’t get along or don’t agree on most things, after ...

When I was in high school, I was fascinated by the stories of ancient mythology. The stories of gods and goddesses were romantic and epic. They seemed to elevate the human attributes to superlative natures. The human characteristics of beauty, strength, speed and agility were all personified into the identities of a deity. Human desires ...

Quite a few years ago Mary and I were renovating an old house that we had bought. It seems as though we are always renovating some old house that we had bought. This one was very tiny, the upstairs / attic had dividers made of bed sheets when we bought it partitioning off two “bedrooms”. ...

There is a great book, written by a very interesting author, called the Screwtape letters. You may have read it, or heard me mention it, the book was written right after the second world war by CS Lewis. He was also the author of the Chronicles of Narnia series, one of the most overtly Christian ...