Rembrandt’s The Return of the Prodigal Son, c. 1661–1669 The longest of the three parables on God’s mercy in chapter 15 of Luke’s Gospel bears the traditional title of The Prodigal Son, named after the younger son who wasted his inheritance in a foreign land. Since the father is the central figure… Read More »Lost in place
In a piece for Assumption’s alumni magazine a few years back, I was musing on the fact that students rate getting a good job as the #1 reason for going to college. No surprise there, but there’s an irony lurking in that. The more apparently practical and pragmatic one approaches the… Read More »What is a sure bet?
Birth stories in the ancient world were told in order to honor a person of great stature and to anticipate, by the details surrounding the birth, his or her heroic or saintly deeds. I have my own birth story that, consistent with the non-heroic temper of our time, reverses the… Read More »Inauspicious Beginnings
If God were to write you a “blank check,” what would you ask for? “Ask what I shall give you,” he says to a young Solomon as he succeeds his father David as king of Israel. Solomon’s response is to make note of his youth, his inexperience, his cluelessness (“I… Read More »Solomon’s desire
Flannery O’Connor, the great Southern Catholic short story writer, was once asked why she uses violence at critical moments in her stories. “To the hard of hearing you shout,” she said, “and to the almost blind you use large and startling figures.” Jesus knew this as well. “If your hand causes… Read More »A word to rouse them
We had an impressive group of young men visiting with us last night from St. John’s Prep. In our conversation with them after dinner, each of them was asked to offer an observation about the service work they had done earlier in the day at a soup kitchen and a… Read More »Gladness and hope: a visit from St. John’s Prep
“What should we do?” ask those crowding around John the Baptist in one of our Advent readings. It’s about as straightforward and important a question as one could ask. The crowd has heard enough of John already to know that an event of great consequence is on the way. How should we… Read More »Advent: a time to clean house
My favorite title for the Blessed Mother is Mary, the Honor of our Race. I know it’s hard to top the Mother of God, but I’m aiming at something a little less elevated. It conveys what I want it to convey, that she is one of our own, and by… Read More »Mary, the honor of our race
Some of you of a certain age may remember Peggy Lee, the songstress who belted out “Fever,” but also a rather sad song, entitled “Is that all there is?” In that second song, she relates a series of experiences in her life – watching her house burn down as a child,… Read More »Christmas: the remedy for a disenchanted world
The lead up to my cancer surgery in April of 2014 was brief. As I was being rolled into the operating room for the biopsy the previous January, one of the attending physicians at Lahey Burlington mentioned, almost casually, that they had seen a dark area in the corner of my… Read More »A new lease on life