Focus on Faith

"We often want to know the entire route, but God most often gives us just enough light for one step. We often want to know the whole story, but God wants to write the story with us, one choice at a time."

In the Sermon on the Mount recounted in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus warns that the person who calls another “raqa” is answerable to the Sanhedrin, or court. But that was back then. We do not have a Sanhedrin now.

Beginnings and endings deserve our utmost attention. Whatever the endeavor, whether it is starting an academic program or graduating, beginning a new job or retiring, it is extremely important to begin well and end well. And if there is any circumstance where this applies, it is the sacrament of marriage.

In 2005, Tom Brady was interviewed by 60 Minutes. At that point he had already won three Super Bowls (he’s won seven now).

Q) With the start of the New Year, I always feel like I should make a resolution. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. Either way, I never end up keeping them, and it just feels like I never change. What do you recommend?

For the next month and a half, our Sunday lectionary will make its way through the first three chapters of St. Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians.

Many couples are proud of the fact that they cooperate well together. I have heard couples say, in a self-congratulatory manner, “We are good at give and take. We compromise very well. We go 50-50 on lots of things. It goes my way about half the time. It goes my spouse’s way the other half. It is workable. It is practical. We are getting along just fine.”

One of the highlights of a pilgrimage I took to the Holy Land with grandparents from our archdiocese three years ago was to celebrate Sunday Mass in one of the caves outside of Bethlehem where the shepherds were watching their sheep on Christmas night.