Matthew 9:1-8 In today’s Gospel from St. Matthew, we heard the story of the paralytic whose friends brought him to Jesus, with the hope that Jesus would heal him. This story also appears in the Gospels of Mark and Luke, who add the detail that the man’s friends, because of the crowds, opened up the…
St. Michael and All Angels Many people are drawn to fantasy stories about epic clashes between angels and demons, in which, on a superhuman scale, the forces of good battle against the forces of evil. We might sit in amazement as we watch movies about this kind of thing. We might be deeply absorbed in…
St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist Have you ever thought about the politics that were present among the disciples of Jesus? I’m not referring just to the way in which they related to each other. I mean the disciples’ involvement in the secular politics of the day, in that corner of the Roman Empire in which…
The institution of the Lord’s Supper by our Savior Jesus Christ, on the night in which he was betrayed, is recorded in three of the Gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – and in St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians. But in these four inspired accounts, the descriptions of exactly what Jesus said are…
Matthew 27:15-26 Barabbas is described in today’s text from St. Matthew, as a “notorious” criminal. St. Mark’s Gospel adds the detail that he was an insurrectionist and a murderer. And St. John’s Gospel tells us that he was a robber. It’s easy to see why he was notorious. As an insurrectionist, he was a flagrant…
Mark 1:21-28 Please listen with me to a reading from the 1st chapter of the Gospel according to St. Mark, beginning at the 21st verse: Then [Jesus and his disciples] went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath He entered the synagogue and taught. And they were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them…
Matthew 15:21-28 “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” These words of our Lord, as recorded in today’s Gospel from St. Matthew, might seem harsh and cruel, especially in the context in which he spoke them. But he was simply stating the truth, as far as his vocation…
Matthew 4:1-4 St. Matthew tells us in today’s Gospel that, after his baptism, “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” If the Son of God was tempted by the devil, then it should not surprise us that the devil is more than willing to tempt everyone…
Matthew 3:13-17 When I was a teenager, one of my household chores was to wash the dishes every evening. One thing that became very clear to me, during these years of my juvenile dish-washing career, was that if you put dirty dishes into clean water, the water gets dirty. Depending on how encrusted…