I’ve just returned home from Jerusalem, mind and heart overflowing. Of many illuminating experiences requiring reflection and expression, I begin with my visit to Calvary.

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) Aug. 4 (Ecclesiastes 1:2, 2:21-23; Psalm 90; Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11; Luke 12:13-21)

In a marvellous little book entitled The Music of Silence, David Steindl-Rast highlights how each hour of the day has its own special light and its own particular mood and how we are more attentive to the present moment when we recognize and honour these “special angels” lurking inside each hour. He’s right. Every hour of the day and every season of the year have something special to give us, but often times we cannot make ourselves present to meet that gift.

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) July 28 (Genesis 18:20-32; Psalm 138; Colossians 2:12-14; Luke 11:1-13)

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) July 21 (Genesis 18:1-10; Psalm 15; Colossians 1:24-28; Luke 10:38-42)

“Why am I alive and on this Earth? Why doesn’t anyone care about me? I can see why nobody cares about me, but why must I end up alone? What’s the point of my life?” These questions are interspersed through my friend’s conversation, as though looking for an answer but not really expecting one. It’s just as well, as I have none, none.

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) July 14 (Deuteronomy 30:10-14; Psalm 69; Colossians 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37)

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) July 7 (Isaiah 66:10-14; Psalm 66; Galatians 6:14-18; Luke 10:1-12, 17-20)

As a young seminarian in the late 1960s, I was very taken by the writings of Andrew Greeley, a priest in Chicago, who was churning out books on popular spirituality.

The German philosopher Nietzsche once described Christianity as a religion of the weak. He argued that religion, especially Christianity, denied the human person free will because it removed the freedom to make choices by relying on a God who, he argued, does not exist.