Twenty-Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time B On October 11 the Catholic Church and indeed the broader world will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council For some of you this date is simply an historical fact others remember it vaguely while others experienced its

September 2004 Al Tafar Nineveh Province Iraq Murph pointed to the low hills around the city Small fires had sprung up in the distance A few city lights and the fires on the hillsides burned like a tattered quilt of fallen stars ldquo It rsquo s beautiful rdquo I whispered I was not sure i

Afterward when the world was exploding around him he felt annoyed with himself for having forgotten the name of the BBC reporter who told him that his old life was over and a new darker existence was about to begin She called him at home on his private line without explaining how she got the n

I lift my hand to my mouth taking one last look at the world The berries have just passed my lips when the trumpets begin to blare rdquo It rsquo s not quite Socrates sipping the hemlock but it rsquo s probably a better known scene at least among young people It ends ldquo The frantic voic

We encounter the gospels more fruitfully when we approach with questions A good beginning is simply to ask why a given story was recorded in the first place Why for example do we hear of a deaf and mute man being healed by Jesus Mk 7 31-37 Why did the early Church remember this incident amo

Deuteronomy 4 1-2 6-8 James 1 17-18 21b -22 27 Mark 7 1-8 14-15 21-23 Little Jerry Siegel was born in 1914 into a large poor family living in gritty Jewish neighborhood of Cleveland He would remain a runt the object of his classmates rsquo taunts As he recalled decades later ldquo I