The Dispatch
The King is the Context
Readings: • Jer 17:5-8 • Psa 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6 • 1 Cor 15:12, 16-20 • Lk 6:17, 20-26 “Context,” I have read, “is king.” While such a saying should itself be read and […]
Jesus Christ
Analysis
Vice President Vance, the Good Samaritan, and the “order of love”
It’s not often that Catholic theology breaks into the news cycle, but this is just what happened when Vice President J. D. Vance gave an interview to FOX News defending the Trump administration’s actions regarding […]
The Dispatch
We are called to be fishers of men
Readings: Is 6:1-2a, 3-8 Ps 138:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 7-8 1 Cor 15:1-11 or 15:3-8 Lk 5:1-11 God initiates. Man responds. Jesus calls. Man answers. Such is the dynamic relationship at the heart of salvation history […]
The Dispatch
“Why did Jesus insist on being baptized?”
Readings: • Is 42:1-4, 6-7 or Is 40:1-5, 9-11 • Ps 29:1-2, 3-4, 3, 9-10 or Ps 104:1b-2, 3-4, 24-25, 27-28, 29-30 • Acts 10:34-38 or Or Ti 2:11-14; 3:4-7 • Lk 3:15-16, 21-22 If […]
The Dispatch
A Holy Family is one totally dedicated to God
The celebration of Christmas has a way of amplifying our ordinary family experience. For a loving and harmonious family, Christmas tends to be the time when its familial bonds are tightened. The members of such […]
The Dispatch
The reason and reality of the Nativity
Eventually, when the Incarnation of the Son of Man is rejected, the rejection of man inevitably follows. This abolition of man is what we are […]
The Dispatch
The Immaculate Conception Revisited
In December 2018, I wrote an article for Catholic World Report on the Immaculate Conception: “Why I came to believe that Mary was conceived without sin.” I argued that it was (1) a matter of […]
The Dispatch
Living between the first and final comings of Christ
Readings: • Bar 5:1-9 • Ps 126:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6 • Phil 1:4-6, 8-11 • Lk 3:1-6 “There are three distinct comings of the Lord of which I know,” wrote St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the […]
The Dispatch
Tribulation, apocalypse, distress—and hope
Readings: • Deut 12:1-3 • Psa 16:5, 8, 9-10, 11 • Heb 10:11-14, 18 • Mk 13:24-32 Tribulation, affliction, and distress. These aren’t attractive topics, but they are quite real; they are part of our […]
The Dispatch
Walking the road of gathering, exodus, and salvation
Readings: • Jer 31:7-9 • Ps 126:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6 • Heb 5:1-6 • Mk 10:46-52 “In the beginning,” states Lumen Gentium, the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, “God made human nature one […]