Ezekiel 37:12-14; Romans: 8:8-11; John 11:1-45 When Ezekiel gave the people his vision of the dead rising from their graves he was not thinking of resurrection as we understand it.  In fact, at the time of Ezekiel, the people of Israel did not yet believe in heaven and hell, or in resurrection.  For them,...
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Exodus 17: 3-7; Romans 5: 1-2,5-8; John 4: 4-42 She had been living a life of lies.  She was rejected by the other townspeople and so she came to the well by herself that day.  Perhaps, others had judged her a sinner because of her many husbands and so they wouldn’t allow her in...
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Genesis 2:7-9,3:1-7;  Romans 5:12-19;  Matthew 4:1-11 It is believed that when Matthew wrote his Gospel he was writing to the Church in Antioch, the capital of the Roman province of Syria.  While there were both Jews and Greeks in that community it appears that Greeks, or Gentile Christians were the majority in number.  In...
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Genesis 12: 1-4;  2 Timothy 1: 8-10;  Matthew 17: 1-9 Hopefully every one of you, at some time or other in your life, has had what I like to call a “mountaintop experience.”  This is an experience like Peter, James and John had when they saw our Lord transfigured before them.  It is one...
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Isaiah 49:14-15; 1 Corinthians 4:1-5; Matthew 6:24-34 These words of Jesus are especially hard for our 21st Century American ears to hear.  Everything that we are taught seems to lead up to tomorrow.  We have to get good grades in high school so that we can get into a good college.  We have to...
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Leviticus 19:1-2,17-18; 1 Corinthians 3:10-11,16-23; Matthew 5:38-48 What does it mean to be holy?  How does one attain holiness?  For the Buddhist, holiness is attained by following an eightfold path consisting of right understanding, speech, action, meditation, and etc.  For the Muslim one attains holiness by fulfilling the Five Pillars of believing in God...
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Sirach 15:15-20; 1 Corinthians 2:6-10; Matthew 5: 17-37 I think I can safely assume that most of us here today are doing our best to follow the laws of our faith.  When it comes to the laws for attending mass on Sundays and Holy Days, and the laws of fasting and abstinence, most of...
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Isaiah 58: 7-10; 1 Corinthians 2: 1-5; Matthew 5: 13-16 Do you ever feel like God is not listening to you?  Do you feel like you are praying but you never receive an answer to your prayers?  Do you pray but still feel far away form God?  Does your prayer life feel a little...
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A special blessing of throats occurs on the feast of St. Blaise, February 3. What is the origin of this? St. Blaise, Biagio in Italian, Blasco or Blas in Spanish, was a bishop of Sebaste, Armenia, in modern Turkey, who was martyred for witnessing to the faith. He was tortured and beheaded for his...
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Zephaniah 2:3,3:12-13; I Corinthians 1:26-31;  Matthew 5:1-12 Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount is often referred to as the beatitudes.  A beatitude was a literary form used by many ancient cultures to try and explain how to live in a world in which good and bad behavior, is rewarded or punished.  This was a...
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