Stories of Mission

  By James H. Kroeger, MM What is the opposite of “faith” in the sacred scriptures?  Many responses are possible: doubt, disbelief, mistrust, uncertainty, hesitation, skepticism, apprehension.  You might even assert that the antonym of “faith” is “fear.”  To be...

  Today we celebrate the Resurrection, the greatest of our Church’s feasts.  That makes it the perfect opportunity to think about what I call “faith encounters.”    There is a rich variety in the different Evangelists’ scriptural accounts of that first Easter. ...

Walking in Solidarity with Jesus On Palm Sunday we begin our intimate Holy Week journey with Jesus.  On this occasion I recall a moving experience from the Philippines, where I spent 52 years in mission.  It was during the visit of Pope Francis in January 2015.  He...

  “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with devotion, devotion with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love.  If these...

“Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were over he was hungry. The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of...

“More than that, I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any...

“So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 Imagine for a moment an archbishop voluntarily living as a homeless man. In the inspirational novel The Homeless Bishop by Joseph E. Girzone,...

“No disciple is superior to the teacher; but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher.” Luke 6:40 Lent is days away now.  So I turn my humble thoughts on preparing for the miracle of Easter… When Socrates was on trial for impiety, he was famously...

“I give you a new commandment, says the Lord; love one another as I have loved you.” John 13:34 Today’s Gospel is a tall order.  Love your enemies, turn the other cheek, and if someone takes your cloak, give them your tunic as well. Reminds me of John Lennon’s...

“Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is the Lord.” Jeremiah 17:7 Easy to find solace in today’s Gospel, the Sermon on the Mount.  Jesus addresses a great crowd with words we call the eight Beatitudes, virtues sure to transform and bless us on our...

"But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been ineffective." 1 Corinthian 15:10 I think of today’s readings as a gift.  Rarely do all three scriptures have a unifying theme, but this Sunday they do, perhaps a gift for the preacher—meaning...

“If I speak in human and angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.”   1 Corinthians 13:1 Charity begins at home.  At least that’s what the Nazarenes thought about the doings of their favorite son.  They wanted Jesus to work a...

Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing. Luke 4:21 Jesus, as we know, was a very great teacher and preacher.  During his public years, he attracted crowds throughout Galilee as he taught in synagogues throughout the land. The crowds, St. Luke tells...

“They have no wine.”   John 2:3 In Africa, weddings re crucial, fateful, far-reaching, revelatory social events.  They are not merely joyful private, personal celebrations, but momentous cosmic communal actions.  A marriage binds together the visible and invisible...