When angels appear to people in scripture the first thing they say is, “Do not be afraid!” And that’s what I need to hear today, on the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels.
I really thought I was a ninja when I was a kid. Seriously. Well, at least a ninja in training.
We have sterilized the cross. What began as a device of torture and execution now adorns bejeweled necklines, book jackets marketing to Christians, and all manner of art and decor.
Nothing, really, is known about Bartholomew, who is mentioned in the list of disciples in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark,
I have to be very careful when I write about the Blessed Virgin Mary.
I would love to be delivered from the disquietude, the anxiety, the unease, of this world. Want to come up with me to the mountain for just a little bit?
We do not know much about him, but James must have been a pretty big deal.
It’s been fifty days since Easter Day. Fifty days. Seven Weeks. An entire liturgical season spent physically distancing from our church families.
Here, forty days after experiencing the impossible, grappling with the fact that Jesus had risen from the dead, the disciples are again standing in awe.
As a priest I probably shouldn’t admit to this, but I know next to nothing about James and Philip, the two saints whom we honor today. To be fair, none of us can claim to know much about them either.