On this last weekday of the Christmas Season, we get one last admonition from St. John: "Children, be on your guard against idols." My gut reaction to readings about idols is the same as most modern people, I suspect. At first, I dismiss them, then on deeper reflection I start looking around my life. Are there things that have become idols? For ( Read more... )

The older I get the more I realize that some of the things my mother did that made me the most crazy were the ones that taught me the most. She would often get angry with us for not doing something around the house and say, “Do I have to tell you to do everything?”   As a child, at least in my head, I would respond, “yes.”    I thought that she had ( Read more... )

Gideon opens today's first reading lamenting, "where are the wonders our fathers told us about ( Read more... )

 In the passage we have from Deuteronomy today, the people are given the instruction, "So you too must befriend the alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt." I have no intention here of wading into the immigration debate ( Read more... )

The rest is easy

We Americans are proud of our work ethic-perhaps too proud. We tend to value our work and busy-ness so much that we forget how to be still enough to hear God’s quiet voice. We need leisure- not frenetic vacationing or compulsive recreational activities but simple rest when we can unplug and think. Jesus says, “I will give you rest ( Read more... )

-- Fr Wayne ( Read more... )

This closing of today's gospel reads, "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him." The wrath of God is death. For John it really is a matter of life and death ( Read more... )

Since the economics down-turn many of the commentators seemed to have locked on the phrase "Keynsian economics," without any real idea who John Maynard Keynes was or what he taught. As a priest my fear is that I hear more and more people taking the position I would call "Cainsian Economics". In the book of Genesis after Cain kills Abe, God asks him ( Read more... )

Today's first reading reminds us of the importance of keeping the Sabbath holy ( Read more... )

As many of you know, I did not grow up in the Catholic Church; I grew up Baptist. In the Baptist Church the closest one might get to movement is clapping your hands ( Read more... )