This reading from the Book of Daniel is an example of a heartfelt prayer of confession and repentance. It’s a reminder for us of the importance of owning our mistakes before the Lord and seeking His forgiveness. It challenges us to confront our own shortcomings, our own failings and errors with humility and honesty. No…
One of the things that we are constantly being invited to consider throughout the Lenten season is to turn our hearts back to God – to recognize the areas of sinfulness in our lives, to repent, and to receive God’s mercy. That’s the message that we have in our readings for this morning. In our…
Every time I hear the Our Father given to us in Scripture and every time I pray it, I always find myself focusing on the part where we are asking the Lord to forgive us our trespasses…as we forgive those who trespass against us. That statement always makes me pause because I know, in my…
Our first reading this morning from the Book of Leviticus is from a section of that particular book of the Bible that has a title of “Various Rules of Conduct.” It’s inviting us to reflect on how we are following the Lord in our daily lives. Are we doing the things that we are called…
In our Gospel Acclamation for this morning, we hear a verse from the prophet Ezekiel, the Lord speaking through him: “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked man, says the Lord, but rather in his conversion, that he may live.” The season of Lent is a time for us to reflect on…
In a meeting with the Bishops of the United States in 2008, Pope Benedict XVI said: “What is needed above all, at this time in the history of the church in America, is a renewal of that apostolic zeal which inspires her shepherds actively to seek out the lost, to bind up those who have…
Over the last couple of weeks now, if you have been to daily Mass, there have been a couple of occasions in our Gospels where we have seen these encounters happen with Jesus and the unclean spirits. It always surprises me how in these interactions, in these Gospel stories, it is often the unclean spirits…
This week we continue reading through the First Book of Samuel, how the Lord has appointed him as a prophet and judge for the people of Israel. Today, we see those two roles really coming to the surface in this interaction we see with Saul. Saul has been commanded by the Lord to go and…
I really love this story about Hannah from the First Book of Samuel because it shows what the Lord can do in our lives when we approach Him with deep faith, when we bring Him our petitions with a sense of trust that He is going to hear us. But it also shows us how…
Growing up, so many of my favorite television shows focused on the family unit. Shows like Family Matters, Full House, Home Improvement, 7th Heaven. I even would watch reruns of those classic television shows like The Andy Griffith Show, The Brady Bunch, and Leave it to Beaver. Why was I – and likely why were…
Fr. Tom Pringle 