The most revealing detail in today’s Gospel isn’t the hunger, or the desert, or anything to do with the specific temptations themselves; the most revealing part is the way the devil begins the conversation. For some context on this passage, Jesus has just come from the Jordan River, He has just been baptized by John,…
Each of us, at some point, has asked questions like: What can I do? How am I supposed to serve? Lord, how are You calling me to point others to You? Those questions live in many of our hearts, especially when we hear readings like these today. We sense that we’re being invited to come…
When we hear today’s Gospel, there’s a detail that we might miss on the surface but is one that’s pretty important when we want to understand what Jesus is saying here. The detail is how little Matthew tells us about the crowd. Think about it: we’re given no information about who these people are, what…
As I was praying with these readings this week, I found myself really drawn into the idea of darkness that we see in the first reding from Isaiah. There is something really unsettling about darkness. It’s not just the fact that we have trouble seeing in the dark, it’s more so that we lose our…
So often, those of us who are trying to grow in the spiritual life, we see other people who seemingly have it all together, those who are really truly holy, and a thought comes to our minds that tells us: I could never be that holy. We tend to think that holiness is reserved for…
Today, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord and She gives us two scenes in our readings that clearly belong together. First, in this passage from Isaiah, God is speaking about His servant, someone who isn’t a political figure or some brutal conqueror. Instead, the servant the Prophet mentions is one…
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family and it invites us to look at the home of Nazareth, to look at the lives of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and to see it not as something distant or idealized, but as a real family. They were real people, living ordinary life but with extraordinary…
We are now just a few days away from Christmas. At this point, the decorations are mostly up. The gifts have been purchased, wrapped, or at least they’ve been bought. We’re busy running around to all those Christmas events and parties with friends. And yet the Church is stepping in, gently interrupting us, and asking…
In our First Reading today, Isaiah gives us an image that kind of sticks with us. He tells us about a stump. Not a tree grown tall, lifting its branches toward the sky. Not a young sapling full of energy and a symbol of vitality. Nope, he talks about a stump. Something cut down. Something…
On the first Sunday of the new liturgical year, the Church does something that is a little unexpected. She doesn’t ease us into the new year gently. She doesn’t take us to a cozy scene from Bethlehem or give us a comforting word about new beginnings. Instead, the year opens with what feels like a…
Fr. Tom Pringle 