First Sunday in Lent, Year B. Mark 1:12-15.
AIM: By showing the spiritual strength gained by Jesus in the desert, to encourage the hearers in their Lenten prayer.
Every detail in this brief gospel reading is rich in biblical images, and rich too in spiritual significance. In Mark’s gospel Jesus’ forty days in the desert begin immediately after the account of Jesus’ baptism. As he emerged from the Jordan River, Jesus saw God’s Spirit descending on him “like a dove” (Mk 1:10). Now, Mark tells us, this same Spirit drives Jesus “out into the desert.”
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7th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. Is. 43: 18-19, 21-22, 24b-25; Mark 2:1-12
AIM: To encourage contrition by showing the magnitude of God’s gift of forgiveness.
If you could start a chapter of your life over again, is there anything you would do differently? Is there anyone here who would not answer Yes to that question? We know, however, that we can never go back in life. We can only go forward.
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6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46; Mark 1:40-45.
AIM: To bring home to the hearers the healing power of God’s unconditioned love.
To be shunned by someone you love is one of life’s greatest hurts. It happens between friends, between lovers, between husbands and wives. They quarrel, and afterwards avoid each other’s company, or refuse to speak when they must be together. Many of us have been through experiences like that. We know how much it hurts to be shunned.
The leper who comes to Jesus in today’s gospel was shunned by everyone except his Continue reading →
When Thomas Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain was published in 1948, it caused an international sensation. Written during the height and aftermath of World War II, the memoir became a bestseller and propelled Merton to worldwide fame. The book is something of modern-day Confessions of St. Augustine: a young, urbane man renounces his worldly life and promising future to become a Trappist monk. Young men across the globe found their vocation in the Catholic Church after being moved by passages such as the following:
“Do everything you can to avoid the amusements and noise and the business of men. Keep as far away as you can from the places where they gather to cheat and insult one another… Do not read their newspapers if you can help it.” Continue reading →
5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. Job 7:1-4, 6-7; Mark 1:29-39.
AIM: To help the hearers be open to the healing power of Christ, God’s personal Word to us.
Have you ever suffered from sleeplessness? If so, you will be able to sympathize with Job, complaining in our first reading: “Troubled nights have been allotted to me. If in bed, I ask, ‘When shall I arise?’ then the night drags on; I am filled with restlessness until the dawn.”
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Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. 1 Cor. 7:32-35.
AIM: To explain Catholic teaching about marriage and celibacy, especially for those currently without a spouse.
Why aren’t Catholic priests married? Wouldn’t they be better able to help people with marriage problems if they were? Many people ask those questions. What better time to consider them than on this Sunday when our second reading deals with marriage and celibacy?
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Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B.
AIM: To show by testimony from those involved the harm which abortion inflicts.
Some time ago a doctor-friend of mine asked me: “Why is there so much bitterness in Washington today? It didn’t used to be that way.” He was right. The bitterness is new. I told my friend that what caused the bitterness was the 1973 decision of our Supreme court in Roe v. Wade, overturning laws in every one of our states protecting the unborn. That decision has poisoned our political life. It has divided our people like no other Supreme Court decision since the Dred Scott case of 1857, which said that a black person “whose ancestors were sold as slaves” had no rights under the Constitution.
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Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. John 1:35-42.
AIM: To challenge the hearers to deeper conversion.
“What are you looking for?” Jesus asks the two disciples of John in the gospel reading we have just heard. This question is Jesus’ first recorded utterance in John’s gospel. Andrew and his friend are not really certain what they are looking for. They may have followed Jesus out of mere curiosity. Asked who they are looking for, they answer with a question of their own: “Where do you stay?” Jesus’ response is hardly less challenging than his original question: “Come and see.”
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Epiphany, Year B. Mt.2:1-12
AIM: To show how Jesus’ roles as king, priest, and sacrifice, prefigured in the Magi’s gifts, are the model for our lives.
Who were these Magi? Where did they come from? We do not know. On the level of history, the story we have just heard is shrouded in mystery. When we move to the spiritual level, however, the mystery falls away. The gifts which the Magi offered tell us a great deal about Mary’s child. The Magi offered him:
gold for a king — incense for a priest — and myrrh for his burial.
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Feast of Mary Mother of God, Year B. Gal. 4:4-7; Lk 2:16-21.
AIM: To help the hearers see that salvation is a free gift, not a reward.
Few words strike such a sensitive nerve today as the term “liberation.” For the last half-century liberation from colonial rule has been the central concern of almost all Third World nations. In our country we have been through black liberation. We are still hearing about women’s liberation. And until recent years there was much talk about something called “liberation theology.”
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