Monday, July 7, 2025

Monday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: Genesis 28:10-22a; Psalm 91:1-4.14-15ab; Matthew 9:18-26

There are few things in life that can challenge one’s faith like sickness and death. In today’s Gospel, we encounter both. Rather than lose faith, both the father whose daughter just died and the woman suffering from hemorrhages demonstrate what faith is and show us how faith leads to hope.

The understandably distraught dad is convinced that if Jesus can just “lay” His hands on the dead girl she will live. Similarly, the woman who had suffered twelve years with what was likely menstrual bleeding felt all she needed to do was touch the Lord’s cloak and she would be healed. Neither one had much reason for optimism: the man’s daughter was dead, and the woman had suffered more than a decade with her chronic health problem.

I think it’s just fine that faith in these kinds of circumstances presents more as desperation than optimism. Hope is what remains when optimism runs out. This woman and this man both believed in Jesus. It seems the distraught father believed both in the Lord’s power to raise his daughter from the dead and in His willingness to do so. This woman, on the other hand, certainly believed in Jesus’ power to heal but perhaps thought she wasn’t significant enough to bother Him with her problem.

Imagine her surprise when, as she touched the tassel on his cloak, the Lord turned and “saw” her, told her to have courage, and affirmed “Your faith has saved you.”1 You see, she was significant to the Lord and He cared about her problem. Don Francisco, an early Contemporary Christian Music artist wrote a song entitled “Closer To Jesus.” In it, he sings about this woman, whose story is also conveyed in Saint Luke’s Gospel:
Now the story 'bout touching
The hem of His garment
Nearly everybody knows
But that woman was healed
By her faith in God
And not by Jesus's clothes2
It’s very often the case that it is in facing desperate circumstances that we turn to Jesus. This is complicated by the reality that the Lord doesn’t always do what I desperately want Him to do. But trust in God, which is what faith really amounts to, isn’t about knowing that God will always do my bidding.



Trusting God certainly means casting your cares on Him and leaving the outcome to Him knowing that He cares for me. Trusting God means recognizing that God’s ways are not always my ways, as painful as this is at times. Not getting what you want doesn’t mean you your faith is somehow deficient. Confident that God makes all things work for the good of those who love Him,3 accepting God’s will no matter what it is it what it means to have faith. Hope is the flower of faith.

Don’t wait until you’re in dire straits to place your trust in Jesus. It is one thing to believe what Jesus can do but another thing entirely to learn how He does what He does. Trust Him by daily talking to Him, sharing with Him your cares and concerns, your joys and your sorrows.

“Courage,”4 as the Lord exhorted the woman in today’s Gospel. Ask Him directly for you want. This means knowing what you want and having some idea as to why you want it. It involves risk. It means making yourself vulnerable.

Be consistent and persistent in your prayers. Remain open to God’s will, which can and often does change how you pray about something. Like the grieving father and chronically sick woman, be bold. In our skeptical age, we sometimes lack such boldness. This is to our detriment.

Recently, I listened to rock legend Alice Cooper share his faith in Christ. When asked by the interviewer, “Who is Jesus you?”, Cooper replied:
He's the core of everything. He's life itself. He is the Light. You know, I mean it's if we don't all revolve around Christ, then we're way I out in space somewhere. He draws you in. He's the Light. You're drawn to that Light. And it's nothing you can explain in words, you know? It's something that happens to your heart, where all of a sudden you realize Who this is. And you realize, oh my gosh, I'm not worthy of this ... And yet, still, being hung on the cross He knew your name. He knew my name. And that made me go, “How can I not believe in this?”5
It’s a safe bet that the two people in our Gospel today did not have a well-developed theological understanding of Jesus’ identity but, like Cooper, they were drawn to the Light and realized, through experience, just Who this is.


1 Matthew 9:22.
2 Don Francisco, "Closer to Jesus."
3 Romans 8:28.
4 Matthew 9:22.
5 See YouTube, “Alice Cooper: A Testimony of Finding Purpose Through God's Grace.”

Saturday, July 5, 2025

"Thy kingdom come..."

Readings: Isa 66:10-14c; Ps 66:1-7.16.20; Gal 6:14-18; Luke 10:1-2.17-20

God's plan will not be thwarted. His kingdom will come. His will will be done. Not only will God's kingdom only be constituted by those who do God's will, it will be inhabited by those who will what God wills. And so, act in the mighty power of God.

According to Paul, "the kingdom of God is not matter of talk." But neither is it, according to him, merely a matter walk, as it were, "but of power" (1 Cor 4:20). The word "matter" does not appear in the original Greek. Hence, "The kingdom of God not in word but in power" is a more straightforward and, I would say, accurate translation.

What is God's power? Well, God is power. God is power because God is love. This is so because God's very nature is love- agape. Agape is self-giving, self-sacrificing love. God's kingdom is brought about by the power of love, it is love, the kind of love given by the Father in the giving of His Only Begotten Son. To love as Christ loves is the power of the kingdom.

To experience the love of God in Christ is the work of the Holy Spirit. As the apostle insists elsewhere: "the kingdom of God is not a matter of food and drink, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy Spirit" (see Romans 14:17). It is a matter of the heart.

The "Israel of God" to which Paul refers in our reading from Galatians is coextensive with the Jerusalem we heard about in our reading from Isaiah. Both are references to God's kingdom; Paul's in the here and now and Isaiah's, even though in context it is about Israel returning from exile- in the eschatological future.

In our Gospel, Jesus commissions and sends out seventy-two disciples. It is a test of their discipleship, of their apprenticeship with the Master. Seventy-two is the product of 12x6. Seven being the number of completion means six leaves us one short of completion. One way to understand and appropriate this is that God's kingdom will not be complete until the Lord returns. In the meantime, as His disciples, we seek make God's kingdom a present reality.



Let's be clear, the Church, even now, is not coextensive with God's kingdom. This is true even we extend the Church to include all the baptized, many of whom are not Catholic. Indeed, we should extend the Church in that way. We cannot determine the extent of God's kingdom present in the world. As we sing in the beautiful hymn Ubi Caritas- Ubi caritas et amor, ubi caritas, Deus ibi est- "Where charity and love are found, God is there."

Note that the hymn does not give a list activities, In harmony with Sacred Scripture, it is a matter of the heart being conformed to Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Caritas, the root of our English word "charity," is the Latin word used to translate agape. As I am writing this, the lyrics to the Rush song "Closer to the Heart" pop into my head. That's how we sail "into destiny."

One's name is not "written in heaven" because one performs mighty deeds in the name of the Lord. You can perform marvelous deeds because your name is written in heaven. Note that Jesus, in our Gospel, "sent" out the seventy-two. He sent them out ahead of Him. Their mission was to prepare His way. Our mission now is no different than the one the Lord sent the seventy-two: to prepare the way of the Lord as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of Savior, Jesus Christ.

At long last, the Church's long season of Ordinary Time, lasting until Advent, has begun. As these readings show, there is nothing ordinary about his (or any) time. So, while it is perfectly alright to spend time relaxing, recuperating, and resting, time is too precious to be killed. Liturgically, "Ordinary" refers to ordering. During this time, time is ordered Sunday by Sunday, Lord's Day by Lord's Day, each one bringing us closer to Jesus' Most Sacred Heart (or leading us farther away?).

Friday, July 4, 2025

"Hey, baby. It's the fourth of July"

Today the United States celebrates Independence Day. It is the 249th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. With that document the thirteen contiguous colonies of North America declared that collectively they were no longer part of the British empire. Following closely on the heels of this declaration was the War of Independence, also known to those of us in the U.S. as the Revolutionary War.

Today, no doubt, a lot will be written about the U.S. Constitution. 17 September, however, is Constitution Day. Because it was on 17 September 1787 that the United States Constitution was signed. This was a bit more than four years after the Treaty of Paris between Great Britain and the newly formed United States of America was signed. It was by signing the Treaty of Paris that Great Britain recognized the United States as a sovereign nation, thus reliquishing all claims and ending the American War of Independence. Between 1783 and 1787, the charter of the new nation was much-maligned Articles of Confederation.

Like the Bible for many American Christians, for a lot of (the same) people the Constitution serves a totemic purpose. In other words, the more someone invokes the Constitution (or the Bible), the less likely they are to know what's in it. But today is not Constitution Day. It is not Memorial Day. It is not Veteran's Day. It is not Armed Forces Day. It is Independence Day. The Declaration of Independence remains the seminal document of the United States of America. The Declaration of Independence is our nation's ur document.

Fourth of July, by Childe Hassam, 1916


The heart of the Declaration of Independence is constituted by the following:
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness
The assertion that there are rights that precede the state and that those rights are granted by God is a bold assertion. Certainly, it is a bolder assertion now than it was 249 years ago. According to the Declaration, securing these rights is why governments exist.

First among these rights is the right to Life. Without this right, other rights don't really matter. What does it mean to be free and happy if you're not alive? Safety, as the document notes, is necessary for Happiness. These are the founding principles of the United States. While most if not all of the founders likely had a more restrictive view of the things they declared than we now have, the Declaration of Independence nonetheless provides a framework within which a more expansive view of these principles can be worked out, like the words found in the Consititution's preamble about forming "a more perfect union."

Far from being a call to permanent revolution, the Declaration goes on to insist that "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes." War, as General Sherman asserted, is hell. Most revolutions find nations worse off than they were before, even if in different ways.

I am okay with incomplete thoughts today. Like many, I worry about the future of our country. We are in crisis and, in my view, have been for the past several decades. What we're experiencing now is a culmination of sorts. One thing about a crisis according to its medical meaning- "a moment during a serious illness when there is the possibility of suddenly getting either better or worse"- is that afterwards things are never the same; maybe better, maybe worse.

When it comes to politics and political engagement, I have benefitted greatly by reading Michael Wear's book The Spirit of Our Politics: Spiritual Formation and the Renovation of Public Life. Yesterday, I listened to an interview with Michael on Steve Cuss's Being Human podcast. I am going to transcribe a portion I found very relevant:
There's this term by this professor at Tufts, Eitan Hersh, "political hobbyism." A political hobbbyist, if you asked them if they were burnt out by politics, they'd say "Yes." But if you said, "Oh, well, have you been going to too many housing meetings... or have you been knocking on too many doors?" They'd say, "No, I haven't done any of that. But I did spend five hours on Reddit last night really tearing into this argument that I don't like." In other words, they're producing political content, but they're not acually participating in politics itself. They feel a kind of responsibility but they're channeling it through means that are sorta most accessible to them. And frankly, the most gratifying
Dopamine is a helluva a drug.

Our traditio, "4th of July," is a song by one of my favorite all-time bands, X. As stated in a nice article on this song, X has "produced a series of albums with broader mainstream appeal [than other L.A. punk bands of their era], including one with a perfect song for America's birthday."

Happy Fourth of July!

Sunday, June 29, 2025

Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God

"Who do you say that I am?" Jesus asked His disciples. Prior to asking this direct question, He inquired who other people said that He was. After answering by telling Him some said He was John the Baptist, which is a bit weird because the Baptist was a contemporary, some said he was Elijah, whose return, according to Malachi, was to usher in the coming of the Messiah, still others insisted He was Jeremiah or another of the prophets, they were asked this direct question.

Stepping up, it was Simon, son of Jonah, who professed Jesus not only as Messiah but as God's Son. At root, what it means to be a Christian is to profess Jesus as Lord, that is, as Messiah and Son of God. This profession is wrought with implications. Relax, I am not going to delve into them.

As a Christian, it's hard to think of a more important question than "Who is Jesus?" What say ye?

Paul, Peter's fellow apostle, insisted both that "nobody speaking by the spirit of God says, 'Jesus be accursed." while convresely asserting "no one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:3).

It's important, I think, to point out that Peter and Paul had a fairly major spat. In the second chapter of Galatians, Paul is pretty hard on Peter for being wishy washy, sometimes taking the side of judaizers and sometimes not, depending on whose company he was in (see Galatians 2:11-14). This is why Paul calls Peter a "hypocrite" outright. Galatians is an authentically Pauline letter.

Saints Peter and Paul, from Vatican News, use Creative Common License


Peter and Paul both met their mortal ends in Rome. Peter being crucified upside down, tradition tell us, and Paul, a Roman citizen being beheaded. Two Roman basilicas mark these spots: Saint Peter's Basilica and Saint Paul Outside the Walls.

Both Apostles also enjoy their own feast days. The Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, Apostle is observed each year on 25 January and the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter the Apostle is fixed on 22 February.

While it is common to refer to the pope as the Successor of Peter, it is important to note that, being universal, the papacy has an important Pauline dimension. Pope Saint Paul VI, who was the first pope to chose the name Paul in 357 years, was the first pope to really travel the world in a missionary spirit. His name and his papal ministry, therefore, are quite fitting. Ever since Pope Paul VI, worldwide travels have been important aspect of the papacy.

Whether to the city (urbi) or to the world (orbi), what the Successor of Peter, who is also the Vicar of Christ, proclaims is that Jesus is Lord, the Messiah, the Son of God. In his Angelus address today, Pope Leo noted
The rock from which Peter received his name is Jesus Christ. He is the rock rejected by the builders, whom God made the cornerstone. This very Square, and the Papal Basilicas of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, are a sign of how that reversal continues in our own day. They are located on the outskirts of the city, “Outside the Walls,” as we say even today. What appears great and glorious to us today, was originally rejected and excluded because it ran counter to the thinking of this world. Those who follow Jesus must tread the path of the Beatitudes, where poverty of spirit, meekness, mercy, hunger and thirst for justice, and peace-making are often met with opposition and even persecution. Yet God’s glory shines forth in his friends and continues to shape them along the way, passing from conversion to conversion
June ends tomorrow. 2025 reaches its halfway point. The summer solstice has come and gone. And so, the daylight slowly begins to recede. I am not preaching tomorrow, meaning this is very likely the last post for June. Only 11 this month. I enjoy doing reflections like this one because I can be looser. Peace and blessings on this lovely solemnity.

Saints Peter & Paul, holy Apostles, pray for us.

Friday, June 27, 2025

Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus



Today is the second of three Solemnities this week. It was lovely to be able to serve at Mass this morning. After cooling down over last weekend and remaining cool through yesterday, it's back to being hot. Boy, the heat really takes it out of me!

I was happy to read wonderful piece by Larry Chapp: "The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the burning furnace of divine love." Like Chapp, I, too, "I have been drawn to the emphasis this devotion places on the humanity of Jesus, as I consider our era as one marked by an anthropological crisis. And with the emerging threat of artificial intelligence, this crisis will only grow more acute. What is a human being? What is special about us? What is our unique dignity as creatures made in the image and likeness of God? What is consciousness? Is there such a thing as a spiritual soul within us?"

This reminded me of the focus of Servant of God Cora Louise Evans mysticism- The Mystical Humanity of Christ. I encourage you to follow the link and read about Cora Evans.
On December 24, 1946, Jesus revealed the mission entrusted to Cora. She learned that she was to promulgate the Mystical Humanity of Christ, a way of prayer that encourages people to live with a heightened awareness of the indwelling presence of Jesus in their daily lives. It is Eucharistic spirituality, and Jesus promised to foster the devotion
Our traditio for today the Litany of the Sacred Heart sung by Benedictine Monks of Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery, Silver City, New Mexico.

Monday, June 23, 2025

Vigil of the Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

Readings: Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6.15.17; 1 Peter 1:8-12; Luke 1:5-17

This evening, we observe the vigil of the Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist. In addition to this solemnity, the Church celebrates two other solemnities this week. Friday is the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Our Saturday Vigil Mass will be the Vigil of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, which we will celebrate on Sunday.

The convergence of all three solemnities doesn’t always occur. The Solemnity of the Sacred Heart is observed each year on the day after the octave of Corpus Christi ends. As it is throughout most of the rest of the world, normatively and traditionally, Corpus Christi is the Thursday after Trinity Sunday.

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, in turn, is the Sunday after Pentecost and Pentecost is fifty days after Easter. All this simply means that the date of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart changes each year, depending on the date of Easter.

By contrast, the Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist is a solemnity with a fixed date: 24 June. At least for those of us in the northern hemisphere, this solemnity fittingly occurs just a few days after the summer solstice. Usually, the summer solstice falls on 21 June but some years, like this year, it happens on 20 June and sometimes on 19 June. 29 June is the fixed date for the Solemnity of Peter and Paul.

It is fitting for the solemnity of the Baptist’s birth to fall near the summer solstice because the birth of John the Baptist, the precursor of the Christ, marks the dawn of a new day, the day of salvation. Even now in many northern European countries, though it has largely lost its religious and liturgical connection, Saint John’s Day is a time for nighttime dinner gatherings and parties: a way to celebrate and enjoy together the long days of summer.

In our Gospel this evening, much is made of Zechariah belonging to the tribe of Levi and to the subdivision of that tribe, the “division of Abijah.” Much more is made of Zechariah being chosen by lot to burn incense in the sanctuary. According to Luke, John’s father was a Levite. But being of the division of Abijah, he was not, strictly speaking, a kohen, a priest. But, according to Luke, his wife, Elizabeth, was a descendant of Aaron.1

Deisis (John the Baptist) of Kirillo-Belozersky iconostasis (15th century, Russia), Wikipedia Commons


Luke’s assertion of Zecheriah’s and Elizabeth’s Levitical kinship has interesting theological implications for Jesus. As set forth by Luke, Mary, the Mother of our Lord, is related to Elizabeth. She is closely enough related to go and stay with her upon learning she was pregnant. Is Mary, too, at least in Luke’s account, of the tribe of Levi? If so, it’s interesting to think about the theological implications for our Lord.

New Testament scholars, like the late Father John P. Meier, whose masterly multi-volume study, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, suggest that Jesus belonged to the House of David, which means he belonged to the tribe of Judah (not Levi), through Joseph. It also bears noting that Levites, like Zechariah, who were not numbered among the kohanim, from patristic times, have been associated with deacons because they, too, assisted the priests. In any case, Luke goes to great pains to show the Baptist’s Levitical credentials.

Given that in ancient Israel, the king was not a priest, how to reconcile Jesus being the true High Priest while not being a kohen or even a Levite is something taken up by the inspired author of the Letter to the Hebrews in what is now chapter seven of that scriptural book. Sense is made of this using Melchizedek, the King of Salem and priest of the Most High God, about whom we heard in yesterday’s first reading from Genesis 14.

The Baptist, like Jeremiah in our first reading, was chosen from his mother’s womb not just to be a prophet, but to be the Messiah’s forerunner. He is also the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophesy about Elijah’s return.2 Jesus identifies John with Elijah.3 John is the seal of the prophets and, according to the Lord, the greatest prophet and perhaps even the greatest of men.4

Among Latin Catholics, veneration of John the Baptist has greatly waned. Traditionally, he has been almost as highly venerated as our Blessed Mother. In Eastern Rite Catholic and Orthodox Churches, Christ, flanked by the Baptist and the Blessed Virgin, is featured on the level of the iconostasis known as the Deisis Tier. John the Baptist should be featured in every publicly prayed Litany of the Saints.

A bit later in the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel, in a canticle known by its first word in Latin, Benedictus, which is recited each day during Morning Prayer, Zechariah, having regained his voice after being struck dumb by the angel for expressing incredulity about his wife bearing a son, sings of his son:
And you, my child, will be called prophet of the Most High,
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,
to give his people knowledge of salvation
by the forgiveness of their sins,
in the tender compassion of our God
the dawn from on high will break upon usto shine on those who dwell in darkness and shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace [modified to match Liturgy of the Hours]5
So, on the Vigil of our celebration of his birth, Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.


1 Luke 1:5.
2 Malachi 3:23-24.
3 Matthew 17:10-13; Mark 9:11-13.
4 Matthew 11:11.
5 Luke 1:76-79.

Sunday, June 22, 2025

Melchizedek: A Christophany

Melchizedek, the King of Salem, is a priest unlike any other priest. "Salem" is a translation of the Hebrew שלם, which transliterates to shalem. Closely related to the more familar shalom, shalem means to make whole or complete. Therefore, shalem sometimes refers to making proper restitution.

It is to Melchizedek that Abram (not yet Abraham) gave a tenth of everything. The "everything" was what Abram looted while rescuing Lot, his nephew, who had been abducted. This tithe is made by Abram after Melchizedek blesses him in the wake of his offering of bread and wine. Salem is mentioned in Psalm 76 as the place where God's tabernacle was located. This tabernacle preceded the building of Solomon's temple. Indicating that Jerusalem was a sacred place well before there were any Israelites.

Apart from Genesis 14, in the whole of Sacred Scripture, Melchizedek is mentioned only in Psalm 110, our Responsorial, and in Hebrews 7. It is in Hebrews that there is one priest who is not only like Melchizedek but who is greater than Melchizedek, just as Melchizedek was greater than Levi (more on this in a minute).

As the inspired author Hebrews notes, being "Without father, mother, or ancestry, without beginning of days or end of life," Melchizedek is "thus made to resemble the Son of God, he remains a priest forever" (Hebrews 7:3). As it turns out, Jesus is not a priest in the line of Melchizedek. Melchizedek has no priestly line. He is a one-off. Rather, Melchizedek is a priest sorta like Christ.

The Sacrifices of Melchizedek, Abel, and Abraham. Mosaic from the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna.


For Israel, the priestly line were descendents of Jacob's son Levi. Moses and Aaron were both Levites. While the tribe of Levi was a priestly tribe, there was a subset of Levites, the descendents of Aaron, who were the priests. Kohen (the familiar Jewish last name "Cohen") is the Hebrew word for priest. Hence, the subset of Levites who were the descendents of Aaron, known as the Kohanim, were the priestly caste. The other Levites, like Zechariah, John the Baptist's father, assisted the Kohanim. This is why, from patristic times, Levites are often corrolated with deacons.

Melchizedek's appearance in Genesis is a Christophany. As a priest "of God Most High," he is, as previously noted, a priest kinda like Jesus. In no way is he more like Jesus than in his offering of bread and wine. We can add to that his role as King of Salem- the king of wholeness and of perfect restitution. Finally, his not being a Levite. Melchizedek was not even an Israelite, as there was no such thing according to the chronology of Genesis, is another important parallel.

Jesus himself was not a Levite. This is perhaps the major issue the inspired author of Hebrews is seeking to explain in the book's seventh chapter (see the whole of Hebrews 7). Jesus was from the tribe of Judah. Yet, He becomes a priest forever, our great High Priest. As such, unique and singular. Melchizedek is a priest sorta like Christ because there is no priest like Jesus Christ. There is nobody who could be a priest like Jesus Christ because no one else is true God and true man. In offering Himself on the altar of the cross, He is both priest and offering.

"If, then, perfection came through the levitical priesthood on the basis of which the people received the law," we read in Hebrews 7, "what need would there still have been for another priest to arise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not reckoned according to the order of Aaron?" Because there was a need for such a priest to arise, there was a change of priesthood. "When there is a change of priesthood," we read further on, "there is necessarily a change of law as well."

There is only one priesthood. The priesthood of Jesus Christ. Through baptism and confirmation, we participate in His priesthood. Hence, like the Levites and greater Israel, Christians are a priestly people. The participation of those ordained to the ministerial priesthood in the priesthood of Jesus Christ differs in kind and not just degree. But that is a topic for another time.

Where I live, understanding Melchizedek is important.

Monday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: Genesis 28:10-22a; Psalm 91:1-4.14-15ab; Matthew 9:18-26 There are few things in life that can challenge one’s faith like sickn...