Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 25, 2021

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We need to have trust that God will provide; but we need to contribute what we can to the effort

Gospel: John 6:1–15
There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?

What’s the test for us? Is it that we too must face the many needs of family, friends, church, world and that we feel overwhelmed or “crowded” by them? How shall we feed them? Is the test the questions that are put before us when we realize that for the really important issues and areas of our lives we do not have enough “bread”?

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Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 11, 2021

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Like the twelve apostles, we are sent out to spread the message of Jesus and trust in his care.

Gospel: Mark 6:7–13
Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra tunic.

How am I telling the story of Jesus to the world by my words and example? What must I leave behind, or change in my daily life, so that I can more effectively witness to Jesus? More basically, does the way I live contradict the name of “Christian” that I bear?

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Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 4, 2021

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What damage lack of understanding does, either to me or by me

Gospel: Mark 6:1–6
Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.”

Maybe we can look again at the familiar billboard signs by the roadside—“Jesus saves”—and ask “From what?” … Saves us from missing our God, who comes in the most everyday and ordinary ways to us—those familiar faces in our own “native place.”

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Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 27, 2021

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God's Healing Power, or, Encountering God in the crosses of our lives

Gospel: Mark 5:21–43
So he went in and said to them, “Why this commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but asleep.” … He took the child by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise!” The girl, a child of twelve, arose immediately and walked around.

When we have been “asleep” to God, or “dead” because of sin, the living Christ “wakes us up” by forgiving our sins and inviting us to eat at the table. We are then restored as a living member of the family of believers.

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