When I taught psychology at a community college, I always took students during Advent to an Operation Santa Claus mission at a state mental hospital. Part of our experience was to...

During the Advent season, my late wife, Alice Ann, and I had a custom of visiting a person in our parish who lived alone. Mary, a single woman, lived a solitary...

Advent is that season of the Christian year when we look backward with gratitude for the birth of Christ and forward with hope as we await the second coming of Christ....

In our reading today we find John the Baptist being questioned by religious leaders. It seems as if all the powers that be have joined together to find out what John...

The Gospel of John opens with the soaring proclamation “In the beginning was the Word.” The writer takes us all the way back to that moment before time, before the stars...

There are some challenging instructions in this letter from Paul to the Thessalonians: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances. If Paul is telling us that we should...

Today’s psalm offers us another image of planting. Verses 5 and 6 describe the people of God going out into the field with their seeds, weeping as they sow. Why are...

In our scripture reading for today, the psalmist remembers a moment when the people of God were filled with laughter because God had restored them to the Promised Land after years...

In verse 11 of today’s text, the prophet uses the image of a garden to offer a word of hope to the people of Israel who had suffered through decades of...

Today we hear the voice of the prophet Isaiah speaking a word of hope to the people of Israel, who have been devastated by the armies of Babylon. They are poor,...