John the Baptist pointing at Christ on The Appearance of Christ Before the People by Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov, 1837–1857. Wikipedia. Public Domain.
A reflection for the 2nd Sunday, Ordinary Time, year B. The readings are Samuel 3:3b-10, 19; Psalm 40; 1 Corinthians 6:13c–15a, 17–20 and John 1:35-42.
Have you heard of the relic of St. Francis Xavier that’s touring Canada? For the whole month of January (2018), it will be traveling to most major Canadian cities. Most of the time relics are a piece of bone or hair. In this case it’s a bit weird ’cause it’s his arm. It’s particularly interesting because St. Francis Xavier is incorrupt – that means that his body has not decomposed, even though he died in 1552. The Church takes incorruption as a sign of holiness. Learn more about the tour at https://cco.ca/relic/.
The reason why I’m bringing him up is that when Francis was in university – he was Spanish, but went to the University of Paris – his roommate was another Spaniard, a guy named Ignatius: St. Ignatius!
A reflection for the Feast of the Holy Family, year B. The readings are Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14; Psalm 128, Col. 3:12-21 and Luke 2:22-40.
“Now master, you may let your servant go in peace.” Those are the beautiful words of Simeon from today’s Gospel reading. It’s a beautiful canticle, one of three in the Gospel of Luke that is prayed every day in the Liturgy of the Hours. This one is prayed during night prayer by all priests and people in consecrated life. But it’s a little strange that this is the Gospel reading for today, because today is not the feast of the Presentation of the Lord – that’s not until February 2nd! Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family. In other years the Gospel for today is the finding of the child Jesus in the temple (Luke 2:41-52) or the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt (Matthew 2:13-23). But this year, it’s this one: the presentation of Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:22-40). It must be that there are some family lessons that can be learned from this reading. In fact, I want to share with you some family lessons that I can see in this reading.
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A reflection for the 32nd Sunday, Ordinary Time, year A.
The readings are Wisdom 6:12-16, Psalm 63, Thessalonians 4:13-18 and Matthew 25:1-13.
When I was at York University, I didn’t live on campus but was part of the (very small) Catholic community there because I didn’t have a parish. I lived about an hour’s bus ride away. One year I was going to help with music for the Good Friday Service. We prepared, picked the songs and practiced. What I failed to realize was that Friday was the first day of the month and in order to get to York, I needed a new monthly bus pass. I walked to the bus and didn’t have the right bus pass and, of course, I had no cash to buy a token (this is way before paying-with-debit days). No problem, go to the bank. But it was a holiday and all the banks were closed. And, of course, when you are looking for a bank machine, you can’t find one. I am not exaggerating when I say that I walked about 10 blocks before I found a bank machine. I got the cash, walked all the way (carrying my heavy guitar case!) back to the bus station, bought the pass and…. holiday bus schedule! There wasn’t a bus every 10 minutes; there was a bus every hour! Needless to say, I arrived at York after the Service had finished.
(Read an English version of this post at saltandlighttv.org/blog)
Desde muy joven a mí me ha interesado este tema del amor. En particular porque si Jesús dice que amar es el mandamiento más grande, entonces tenemos que entender que quiere decir amar. Podemos pasarnos la semana entera explorando todos los significados del amor y que quiere decir amar a Dios y amar al prójimo, pero hoy quiero reflexionar sobre tres cosas que tiene el amor que no se deben olvidar.
En el 2015 tuve la oportunidad de ir a Puerto Rico a un simposio misionero en preparación para el 5º Congreso Americano Misionero que va a ser en Santa Cruz de la Sierra en Bolivia en el 2018. Había más de 100 delegados de 23 distintos países de toda Latinoamérica, el Caribe, Canadá y los EE.UU.
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deacon pedro 