What does it mean to love someone? It is hard to capture in English what Christ is asking Peter in the Gospel today. Greek, the language in which St. John composed his Gospel, has many words for love, two of which John employs here – “agape” and “philia.” “Philia” is a love of deep friendship, […]
Read more "Do you love me?"“For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” St. Paul writes today about a radical transformation of the human person. God allowed his Son to “become sin” for us – taking on the greatest effect of sin, that […]
Read more "Entering the Silence of True Prayer"It is rather late this year, but we have finally begun the holy season of Lent, this intense time in the Church’s life when we dedicate ourselves to what is most important: coming back to the Lord with our whole hearts through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. The first of these three ancient Lenten disciplines, prayer, […]
Read more "True Prayer at Mass"“Give, and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.” When we were kids, my sister and I would help my grandma bake cookies. My sister loved […]
Read more "Giving Thanks to God for His Indescribable Gifts"Last Sunday, we heard about the incredible mission that Christ invites us to share in as members of His body the Church, His mission to preach the good news to the spiritually poor. Today, in the Gospel, we continue right where we left off. The results of our Lord’s invitation are not quite what we […]
Read more "The Commercialization of Anger vs. Authentic Love"“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. … Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” The people listening to our Lord must have been shocked to hear Him say these words. St. Luke tells us that, “the eyes of all […]
Read more "Bringing Glad Tidings to the Spiritually Poor"Over the course of the year, through the Church’s different celebrations, we get to live the entire earthly life of our Lord. Actually, we really do so in a matter of five months between Christmas and the Ascension. After Christmas, we fast-forwarded to when He was 12 years old for the finding in the Temple, […]
Read more "God’s Love Cannot Be Earned"Why do you all think that Christmas is such a big deal? We can imagine this question being posed by someone who doesn’t know much about Christianity – maybe someone from China, Iran, or North Korea. But that same question would actually be posed to us by the earliest Christians themselves! To them, today’s feast […]
Read more "The Gifts of the Magi"Most of us are probably familiar with the word “liturgy.” It refers to any public worship of the Church. Normally that means the Holy Mass, but all the sacraments have their liturgies – their official rites that they must follow (the words of absolution pronounced by the priest, the prayers said at a baptism, etc.). […]
Read more "The Priority of God in Christian Worship"Christmas is the most unlikely of events. That is probably why it has captured our hearts and imaginations for centuries – that God would break into our world not as a warrior king but as a small, vulnerable baby born into the poverty of a stable, laid in a feeding trough surrounded by straw. You […]
Read more "Interrupted by the Christchild"
Father Gregerson 