Sep 30, 2024

(Job 3:1-3,11-17,20-23;   Ps.88:2-8;   Lk.9:51-56)

“My soul is surfeited with troubles

and my life draws near to the netherworld.”

After sitting in silence seven days, scraping the boils from his skin, finally, “Job opened his mouth and cursed his day.”  Finally he cries out against all his troubles, asking,...

Sep 29, 2024

(Job 1:6-22;   Ps.17:1-3,6-7;   Lk.9:46-50)

“Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb,

and naked I shall go back again.”

In the beginning and in the end, we have nothing: and so should be our attitude toward all things we are given – that they are not our own, that we do not possess them… that they shall...

Sep 28, 2024

(Nm.11:25-29;   Ps.19:8-10,12-14;   Jas.5:1-6;   Mk.9:38-43,45,47-48) 

“Would that all the people to the Lord were prophets!

Would that the Lord might bestow His Spirit on them all!”

There is of course a striking similarity in our first reading and our gospel today.  In one, Joshua, “who from his youth had been...

Sep 27, 2024

(Ec.11:9-12:8;   Ps.90:1,3-6,12-14,17;   Lk.9:43-45)

“The dust returns to the earth as it once was,

and the life breath returns to God who gave it.”

“As a watch of the night” is our life, passing unnoticed while souls slumber.  “You make an end of them in their sleep,” Psalm 90 prophesies (as we hear the...

Sep 26, 2024

(Ec.3:1-11;   Ps.144:1-4;   Lk.9:18-22)

“He has made everything appropriate to its time,

and has put the timeless into their hearts.”

Yes, “there is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens”; and there is a time for time to cease and the timeless to come to the fore –...