The crowd doesn’t get it. Hours after Jesus had provided bread from heaven, they murmur to him, “‘What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you?'” (Jn 6:30). The crowd now gathered around Jesus echoes the grumbling of
In lectionary cycle B, the Church turns from Mark’s Gospel for five weeks to contemplate the Bread of Life discourse in the Gospel of John. John 6 is important to Catholics, who see in Jesus’ words a foretaste of the Eucharistic banquet
There’s a temptation for us fallen creatures to reduce the Church to a space of political gamesmanship. Vatican-watchers pay attention to the appointment of bishops, hypothesizing what this means for the pope’s political vision of the Church. Individual clergy may wonder to
God elects Christians. I don’t mean that individual Christians are placed on some celestial ballot. Rather, every Christian is part of the elect, those who have been graciously chosen by God for salvation. But whom does God elect? And what does God
It’s never easy to hear truth from those we know well. A husband or wife may experience bitterness of heart when their spouse tells them that they’re not carrying their weight around the home. They’re too quick to look at their smartphone
Death is chaotic. The once vital body shuts down. Breathing becomes labored. As blood ceases to flow, the process of decomposition begins. In dying, our bodies become nothing. All that remains is bones. When God created the world, God fought against this
The Gospel of Luke doesn’t begin with Jesus. It begins with the birth of John the Baptist, an event nearly as stunning, almost as impossible as the Incarnation of Jesus Christ himself. Elizabeth and Zechariah are righteous and barren (Lk 1:6-7). Like
In a fallen world, power wins. Laws are passed in favor of abortion, against the immigrant and criminalizing the homeless because the powerful exert their will over the weak. There are winners, and there are losers. It’s better to win. Yet divine
The 20th century American philosopher John Dewey was no fan of “dogmatic” thinking. To be dogmatic for Dewey was to give up suppleness of mind, excluding the possibilities of new experience. It was to hold onto something that explained away the mystery
At Pentecost, Christians are healed of the awful tendency to cultivate division in the world