News - October 2017 RSS Feed

Dear friends in Christ,
Our Gospel today is one that has entered into popular speech with the famous line, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.” But before you get to that verse, I think something even more striking occurs. The Pharisees attempt to “butter up” Jesus by commenting that he is a “truthful man” and that he “teaches the way of God in accordance with the truth.” They go on to say that he is “not concerned with anyone’s opinion, for you do not regard a person’s status.” As usual, the Pharisees’ strategy backfires on them.

Dear friends in Christ,
Our Gospel today is one that has entered into popular speech with the famous line, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.” But before you get to that verse, I think something even more striking occurs. The Pharisees attempt to “butter up” Jesus by commenting that he is a “truthful man” and that he “teaches the way of God in accordance with the truth.” They go on to say that he is “not concerned with anyone’s opinion, for you do not regard a person’s status.” As usual, the Pharisees’ strategy backfires on them.

Dear friends in Christ,
We are in a stretch of Sundays of Ordinary Time where we have been reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians for the past four weeks. The readings culminate today with one of the most powerful lines of Scripture that St. Paul ever wrote: “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” That’s a quote that we might consider taping to our bathroom mirror or putting on our refrigerator so that we see it every day. Like Paul, we too can do all things in Christ, not because of any power of the self, but only by the grace of God who gives us strength. Never forget that, my friends!

Dear friends in Christ,
It’s been six weeks since Hurricane Harvey came ashore and inundated southeast Texas with record amounts of rainfall. In addition to the terrible destruction done to Rockport and other small communities along the Gulf Coast, we in Houston suffered devastating amounts of flood waters in the days that followed. The waters have receded now, but those whose homes took on water still have a long way to go to put back together their lives.