In the end, we have to get there. There is no scent of spring in the air yet, no empty tomb, no newly-minted sun to glitter on our incredulous tears. We have to get there. And it is an uphill journey. The wind pushes the clouds into a threatening mass overhead, turning the sky the…
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The statement on this page of the Gospel is vehement and its effect is like that of a stone dropped in a pond: Philip goes to find Andrew, and Andrew and Philip seek out Jesus. It seems to me that this is the only possible answer to give the Greeks. Do you want to see…
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LIFT UP YOUR gaze (JOHN 3:14-21) Today’s Gospel is a description of light tapping at a window. The light filtering through the pane urges us to make a choice: do we want to take the high road and go forth, or do we prefer to hide behind a wall? The impassioned call we hear… Read more »
MAKE love ESPLODERE (JOHN 2:13-25) With the determination of a child learning to walk, Jesus attempts in today’s Gospel to set a new course, reversing the old one. It means refusing to turn God’s sacred dwelling into a marketplace and, instead, allowing the Divine One to emerge and fertilize even the marketplace. This reversal… Read more »
OH FOR A LITTLE light! (Mark 9:2-10) We seem to hear Peter demanding in his heart: Why so much radiance, Lord? Why dazzle us with all this light when it will come to an end? How can we bear the burden of darkness after experiencing the caressing light of your transfiguring beauty? After… Read more »
The temptation described in today’s Gospel is a laceration carved into the flesh of Jesus. The forty days mentioned is not a time frame but a sign of what will accompany him all his life, from his time in the desert to the Garden of Olives. He is tempted to believe that the face of …
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The crowds spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and strewed them along the route.We must return to loving our roads: those roads that enable us to take steps towards Life; those roads that offer possibilities for relationships; those roads that savor and anticipate the promise of a…
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When Jesus hears that Lazarus is sick, he remains right where he is for another two days. He does not race to the side of his friend. He is the Lord of time, so it is he who decides when to move. When he reaches the tomb of Lazarus, Martha says sorrowfully: Lord, if you…
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He’s such an annoying man. There he sits by the side of the road: a blind beggar who is nevertheless terribly alive, so alive that he pierces our gaze, so alive that he forces us to respond, so alive that it makes us hurt. Why is he like that? Jesus, however, sees the mendicant in …
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In the warm midday silence, a solitary woman slips toward the town well, a site depicted in the Bible as a place for meeting and socializing with others. But at this point in the life of the Samaritan woman, the local well is simply a place to fill her water pitcher at a time when …
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