From the Pastor

Aggression is one of our instinctive reactions to difficult situations. Jesus’ teaching in today’s Gospel tells us that if we respond to aggression with more aggression we risk creating an endless cycle of violence. Violence harms our unity, setting one person against another and making cooperation impossible. Jesus teaches that God’s love extends to everyone, […]

In his Gospel St. Matthew portrays Jesus as a new and greater Moses. It was on a mountain Sinai, that Moses delivered the Law of God. Now it’s on a mountainside, in His Sermon on the Mount, that Jesus delivers the new law. When He says, “You have learnt how it was said to our

When we read today’s Gospel reading we get a little snapshot of Jesus’ teaching. It’s a tiny reading, just as four verses long. If we look at the words we have heard today alone we get some meaning, but it is by other means the whole picture. Fortunately we have every opportunity to look a

We are so used to the Beatitudes that we cannot comprehend how amazing they must have seemed to their first listeners. It is not that they would have been completely unaware of the teaching behind what Jesus was saying. If we were to examine them carefully, we would find that each one of the eight

St. Matthew tells us that by setting in Capernaum, “a lakeside town on the borders of Zebulun and Nephtali”, Jesus fulfilled the words of the prophet Isaiah. Without saying or doing anything particularly spectacular, Jesus fulfilles a prophecy in the scriptures by staying in a certain place. For St. Matthew, Jesus is the new king.

All the readings in our liturgy today make the claim that Jesus’ message is for the whole world. It is universal. He fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah in the first reading, which says that God’s servant will bring a message of salvation that must reach to the ends of the earth. St. Paul insists in

At His baptism, as the water trickled down His face, Jesus experienced two mysterious signs that were to change His life. They were the divine call to begin His life’s mission as Savior of the world. He would be equipped for this task with the power of the Holy Spirit. There was also the voice

The celebration has been held on different dates, usually in January, because January 1, eighth days after Christmas, commemorates the circumcision of the Child Jesus, at the end of eight days, when He was circumcised, He was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was concived in the womb. The famous preacher

Today, the Sunday before Christmas, the Church acts as “heir hunter” for us, to teach us who we are and where we come from. This teaching involves a lesson about Jesus Himself, about who He is. St. Matthew has begun his Gospel story with a genealogy, a family tree, to show us the bloodline of

Today is known as Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is the Latin for “Rejoice”. It may seem strange, then, that in the Gospel reading we hear that John the Baptist is stuck in prison, awaiting execution. John sends a message to Jesus to try to glean some shred of hope: “Are you the one who is to