Brothers John and James, the sons of Zebedee, had ambition. When they make their famous request for places of honor In Mark's gospel, Jesus takes the opportunity to give them a lesson on the nature of true greatness as loving and serving, even to the...
St. Bede the Venerable on the call of Matthew, Tax Collector turned disciple, apostle & evangelist. Matthew, originally called Levi, was, as a publican, excommunicated from the life of the synagogue and shunned in Jewish society....
We so often condemn the Pharisees that we totally miss a sneaky way that we are often like them. The hard saying of Jesus "if you hand causes you to sin, cut it off" is a kind of shock therapy to wake us up...
Envy, one of the seven deadly sins, is different from mere jealousy - it is darker and much more dangerous. Yet its cunning can be - and has been - defeated....
Robert Bellarmine, reflecting on Jesus' statement in Matthew 11:30 that "my yoke is easy, my burden light," explains it in terms of love of God and the joy and happiness that it produces, in this life, and eternally. For September 17, his feast day....
Christians are called to be intentional disciples who make a conscious decision to follow Jesus and him alone. But discipleship can't be a one-time decision. As in a marriage, the commitment must be renewed daily....
St. Lawrence (also rendered St. Laurence) was one of the seven deacons of the Church of Rome and was martyred under the Emperor Valerian on the 10th of August 258, four days after Pope Sixtus II and his companions. Little is known of the life...
The story of Bartimaeus, the blind beggar who met Jesus on the road to Jericho, is a dramatic event from the Gospel of Mark that illustrates something very important about the true nature of Christian faith....
14 minute podcast in which Dr. Italy tells the fuller story of St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Chaplain of Auschwitz.. Few know the extent of his heroic charity before he volunteered to die in the place of another, or the days after his fateful decision....
Hear O Israel! Most have heard of the Great Commandment - to love God with your whole heart and your neighbor as yourself. But if God is just and salvation depends upon perfect obedience to this command, who can be saved?...