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Living with Christ
Living with Christ provides a wide variety of resources that help to nourish your daily spiritual life, putting the richness of the Christian spiritual tradition at your fingertips. Use these for your personal growth, for your reflection and prayer, and for sharing your faith with others in your family, household, or community. Visit online at www.LivingWithChrist.us.
The mystery … has now been revealed. (Ephesians 3:3, 5) Here’s the “mystery”: God was revealed to a particular people — the Jewish people — but all along, God intended to to be revealed eventually to everyone. For a long time this plan was…
Gospel reflection: A humble heart
Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart. (Luke 2:19) May the Virgin make our hearts humble and submissive like her son’s heart. In her, the heart of Jesus was formed. Let us learn to be humble, accepting humiliations…
Christmas Gospel reflection: Christmas … always
This will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. (Luke 2:12) I confess I sometimes sympathize with the Grinch. I look for ways to stop Christmas from coming. The closer it gets, the…
Sunday Gospel Reflections: Imperfect circumstances
This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. (Matthew 1:18) This introduction leaves us waiting in expectation of a story that will leave us mesmerized. We anticipate some logical explanation about the Incarnation. But this does not…
Sunday Gospel reflections: Prayerful pauses
Be patient, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. (James 5:7) I gave a talk in a parish on…
Gospel reflection: It must have been this way
Many of the Marian doctrines and feasts — so troublesome to those who hold that Scripture is the sole source of what can be known about Jesus and Mary — have roots in the earliest centuries of the Christian faith. These Christians seem to…
Sunday Gospel reflections: The face in the mirror
John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" (Matthew 3:1-2) There are times my children’s faults weigh heavily on me. Why does she procrastinate so? Why don’t they pick…
Sunday Gospel reflections: Making vision of peace a reality
They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks (Isaiah 2:4). The prophet Isaiah wrote this verse in the eighth century B.C., a critical time in the Israelites’ history when they were being invaded by…
Sunday Gospel reflections: What kind of king is Christ?
The Solemnity of Christ the King seems at times to be out of place in democratic societies. If a king is understood to be one who rules with absolute power, this image runs counter to what we consider the ideal government. The readings of…
Sunday Gospel reflections: We can count on Christ’s help
It is not always easy to follow the Gospel, especially when many persons who seem to live only for themselves appear to be thriving. That’s one of the reasons why this Sunday’s Scripture encourages all of us to try to live justly and…