As Catholic Schools Week begins this year, today’s Gospel reminds us of a very important truth— Jesus was a teacher: “…on the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught. The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.” Jesus was a teacher. He taught in synagogues, he taught in the temple, he taught from hillsides, and he taught from boats. Jesus was a teacher. Jesus taught in a way that was different from other teachers. And the people recognized that. In contrast to the scribes who merely recited laws, Jesus’ teaching was mar ..read more

Today marks the end of our year-long reading of nearly all of George Eliot’s novels. By reading a chapter a day, we finished Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Romola, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda. Looking back over the past year, I have to admit that this year’s challenge was more difficult for me than past years. Eliot is a more challenging writer than I expected, and some of the chapters were a bit too long for a daily reading. Still, now that I have read them all at least once, I feel prepared for a more in depth reading of them in the future. My three favorites were Romol ..read more

The 2024 Fantasy Classics Chapter-a-Day Read-along begins in just a couple of days and it’s time to get ready to enter our first fantastical world, the enchanted land of Narnia. I hope you’ve been able to track down a copy of The Chronicles of Narnia either in the single volume edition or as a box set of individual books. Our journey to Narnia begins with The Magician’s Nephew, a prelude to the series that unveils the origins of Narnia and sets the stage for the rest of the series. As we read chapter by chapter each day together, I encourage you to not only appreciate in the magic of Lewis’ s ..read more

Today we heard the prophet Isaiah say, “I rejoice heartily in the LORD, in my God is the joy of my soul.” The word “rejoice” is repeated over and over in today’s Gaudete Sunday liturgy, from that reading of Isaiah, to the responsorial psalm, “My soul rejoices in my God,” and in Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, “Rejoice always.” We’re only about a week away from Christmas, and today we are reminded that Christmas is a time of rejoicing. There are many people whose faces shine with that spirit of rejoicing, and who are filled with Christmas joy. But I’ve talked with many other people this ye ..read more

Welcome to the official sign-up post for a very special 2024 Chapter-a-Day Read-along! This year we we will be reading some of the most beloved modern classics in all of literature: The Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, and the entire Harry Potter series. All three series are in the top ten of the PBS list of America’s 100 most-loved books, and are adored by readers the world over. And, since 2024 is a leap year, we get an extra day to read! Long-time participants will notice a couple of changes to this year’s read-along. First, I normally like to choose books that are in the public do ..read more

We are given very powerful readings today, powerful individually and powerful collectively. And at the heart of them all is a line by St. Paul in his letter to the Romans: “…be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” So today we’re given three challenges: transformation, renewal, and discernment. First Paul says, be transformed. This is what Jesus is trying to help Peter do in today’s Gospel. When Jesus explains what it means to be the Messiah — that it means suffering, death, and resurrection — Peter rebuk ..read more

The George Eliot Chapter-a-Day Read-along continues this week with a book that some call the greatest novel in the English language, Middlemarch: A Study in Provincial Life. I have wanted to read Middlemarch for many years, having started it several times, but I was never able to make it very far. A book like Middlemarch is exactly the reason I began the chapter-a-day read-alongs, and I look forward to finally engaging with Eliot’s masterpiece. If you’ve been following this year’s reading schedule, then you know that tomorrow you will read the Epilogue to Romola and then on Thursday, July 27 ..read more

It’s a sad fact of history that the largest religious community that ever lived together in the same place in the history of the Catholic Church was at the Dachau concentration camp in Germany during World War II. Over 2,500 Catholic priests became prisoners in Dachau, in Cellblock 26, known as the Priestblock. They were from 144 dioceses and 25 countries, and they made up about a third of Dachau’s total population. While they were there at Dachau, the priests ministered to the other prisoners the best they could, and they tried to strengthen each other, and give each other hope. As the days ..read more

The feast of the Epiphany commemorates the arrival of the magi, and their journey to find Christ can inspire us to reflect on our own journey to encounter Christ in our lives. Each of our journeys is unique, and no one finds Christ in the quite the same way as anyone else. The magi in the Gospel of Matthew found Jesus in their own way. The names and numbers of the magi are not given in Matthew’s gospel, but we think of them as a group of three, probably because of the three gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Our tradition gives them the names Caspar, Balthasar, and Melchior. These three ..read more

With the new year beginning today it’s time for my annual list of favorite reads from the previous year. As I look back on 2022, I see that I definitely did not stick to my plan to read books from my greatest books list. Nonetheless, I still had a fruitful year of reading. My intention was to begin with a re-read of the Iliad and the Odyssey and then move on to other epics like the Aeneid and Paradise Lost, but my reading philosophy began to change in the middle of last year. More on that later. First, here are my favorite reads from 2022: A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare A L ..read more