On the Threshold

Gospel for Fourth Sunday in Lent Sunday, March 26, 2017 By Glen Argan The man born blind is each of us. Watch how this nameless man grows in maturity, indeed Christian maturity, throughout the healing story in John 9 (1-41). The man was born blind, Jesus says, “so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” God’s work here is

Gospel for March 12, 2017 Second Sunday of Lent By Glen Argan The Transfiguration (Matthew 17.1-9) is one of the great stories of the New Testament. Typically, it is interpreted as a story which reveals that Christ’s glory and his passion are one. That is true, but I think that taken alone such an interpretation rushes ahead too quickly to

First Sunday in Lent Sunday, March 5, 2017 By Glen Argan Sin is a room with no exit, not even a window that lets in a glimmer of light. When we face our sin square in the eye, we realize we have let it define us. That sin of adultery, that refusal to help the person in need, that little

Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time Gospel for February 26, 2017 By Glen Argan If there is one reading in the Bible that shoots an arrow through the heart of our accumulative, frenzied, technological, top-down society, it is Sunday’s Gospel (Matthew 6.24-34). I have to admit that every time I read or hear this reading about the lilies of the field

By Glen Argan The Jesus we meet in last week’s and this week’s (Matthew 5.38-48) Gospels is a no-nonsense fellow. The last line says it all: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Well, how is that possible? No mention is made of Jesus sending his Holy Spirit to help us along. Just do it; be perfect. Following Jesus

Gospel for Sunday, February 12, 2017 Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time By Glen Argan We do not make our own salvation; it is God’s gift to us through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. This is the basic existential truth of Christianity. Salvation is not an achievement, but a gift. Yet, in recent decades, many who were raised in Christian

By Glen Argan Those who compiled the Lectionary showed a stroke of genius – or divine inspiration – when they linked Matthew’s Gospel on the salt of the earth and light of the world with Isaiah’s poem on fasting. In doing so, they made a statement about how humble humans give glory to God. In his Sermon on the Mount,

Gospel for Sunday, Jan. 29, 2017 Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time By Glen Argan One anchor of the Catholic Mass is the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, recited on Sundays and solemnities. In it, we profess our core Christian beliefs about the life of Jesus and the nature of God. The development of the Creed at the church councils of Nicaea and Constantinople

Sunday, January 2, 2017 Third Sunday in Ordinary Time By Glen Argan Jesus’ call to Simon and Andrew who were fishing in the Sea of Galilee to “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of people,” is one of the Gospels’ most evocative scenes. “Immediately they left their nets and followed him.” So too did the sons of

Sunday, January 15, 2017 Second Sunday in Ordinary Time By Glen Argan This week, following Monday’s celebration of the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, we enter what the Church calls “Ordinary Time.” That makes Sunday’s Gospel somewhat paradoxical for it too is an account of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan. Twice in one week do we hear accounts