By Reverend Katherine Elsner When I read today’s scripture, I found that LOVE is the theme: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We hear this theme often in our scripture readings. My first thought was “what can I say that hasn’t been said regarding Jesus’ instructions about love?” I found this little book in my possession
Homily for Twenty-third Week of Ordinary Time, Year A Read More »
By Reverend Katherine Elsner I must say that I love this reading from Mattew with Jesus’ question: Who Do You Say That I AM? It’s such a direct question where Jesus goes straight to the heart of what he wants to know. However, first let’s see what was going on in the Hebrew scripture reading
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By Reverend Katherine Elsner I can’t imagine how alone, fearful and insecure the disciples of Jesus must have felt when they finally figured out that they had been called by Jesus to go forward with his teachings. Looking back, they remembered that Peter denied Jesus, that none of them had been at the foot of
Homily for Sixth Week of Easter, Year A Read More »
By Reverend Katherine Elsner As I mentioned at the beginning of mass today, these weeks in the Catholic church are known as Ordinary Time. The word “ordinary” can convey a negative meaning, such as “she or he is just ordinary”, as if that person has nothing noteworthy about him or her. Another comment: “I’m just
Homily for Second Week of Ordinary Time, Year A Read More »
By Reverend Katherine Elsner Our readings today don’t mince words. It’s no wonder with these strong people in our heritage from many years ago: Isaiah, Paul and John the Baptist. In our day and age we are surrounded by would-be prophets; I guess we could even say “false prophets”, those who speak to us in
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By Reverend Katherine Elsner Today’s first & third readings convey stark warnings for those who live their lives with integrity and justice. This warning became a reality 36 years ago this week, in 1989 in El Salvador, when six Jesuits, their house keeper & her daughter were murdered by Salvadoran government forces. These Jesuits were
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Story of Jesus & Disciples on the road to Emmaus Last week we heard two stories of Jesus’ presence after the resurrection. One was that Jesus appeared to the disciples who were gathered and hiding in a locked room. In the second story Jesus appeared when Thomas was with the other gathered disciples. Today’s gospel
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The Beatitudes from Matthew 5 Today Barb read section from the gospel of Matthew, called Beatitudes, found in The Sermon on the Mount, probably one of the most well known texts of the New Testament. Matthew places them near the beginning of his account of Jesus’ public ministry, though we don’t know if they actually
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Luke 20:27-38 In today’s gospel we find a group of religious leaders back in the day known as Sadducees, who did not believe in resurrection of the dead. The Sadducees propose a trick question to Jesus, trying to discredit him. The trick question asked about a law from Moses’ time found in the Torah that
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Samaritan Woman at the Well Who is God? What is God like? How do we describe God? Does God change? Today’s readings challenge our concepts of God. With all that we have read and prayed and studied over our lifetimes, today might be an appropriate day to challenge how we think about God. First and
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