Letter from the Pastor

“In the cities the wounded and dying cry out, but God ignores their prayers.” This cry of Job must be one of the most poignant statements in the Scriptures. Although the scholars keep telling us this is an anguished cry for help from a man in intense pain, it sounds more like a cry of despair. After all, this is the same Job who also cried: “I give up, I am tired of living. Leave me alone. My life makes no sense.” But the scholars must be right: knowing Job, basically, the man of faith, his outburst must have been […]

One of the most fascinating things about the New Testament is the amazing faith that Jesus had in all sorts of people. Follow Jesus through the years of His ministry, and you will see that same attitude reflected toward all sorts of people – a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery, a dishonest tax collector named Zacchaeus, and a Samaritan woman who had failed in marriage five times. And one of the last things He did, just before He died, was express His confidence in a condemned felon, who was dying on the cross right next […]

Temptation is often deceptively subtle. There is a diabolical thing about evil. It can seem so reasonable, so necessary, even so beautiful. Some years ago a popular song had a line in it which said, “It can’t be wrong when it seems so right.” Well, I hate to disappoint some people; but wrong always has a way of appearing right to those who want to do it. Evil does not present itself in the form of some grotesque creature with horns, hooves, and a pitchfork. Temptation will come to us often in forms that are very subtle. Dishonesty will disguise […]

It is important that we become sensitive to God’s presence/alert to the ways He reveals Himself in the daily occurrence of life. Often the problem is that we simply don’t know what to look for, or we don’t take the time in our hurried lives to be aware of our Father’s presence. It’s like going out to a forest in the dead of winter. All we can see are bare limbs of trees, a blanket of snow, withered flowers. There doesn’t seem to be much life around. Yet all the life of a forest in the fullness of summer is […]

From the beginning of time, the devil – who is real by the way – has tried to mislead us. And he often succeeds. Adam is the best example but he seems to be particularly successful in our day and age. Our permissive age and our consumer society seem to have given into the temptation that it is by bread alone that a person lives – bread signifying food, pleasure and all that is material. Many seem to believe that economic well-being as important as it is, is all that matters. There are many Catholics who are more excited by […]