Leif Kehrwald
November 11, 2018

I find three specific challenges in our readings today:
1. A call to radical hospitality.
2. A warning against privilege.
3. A call to end hunger and poverty.
(Just three minor, simple things to address!)

GabeTriplett
​November 4, 2018

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Sr. Phyllis Jaszkowiak
October 21, 2018

The Gospel, today has three important lessons for us.  The first is that if we really follow Jesus we will drink the cup he drinks and be baptized with his baptism.  The second is that we are to be humble, be the servant of all, in how we follow Jesus, especially if we are in a position of leadership.  The third is that Jesus chose human beings with strengths and weaknesses to follow him.  It is the same today.
 
We sometimes forget, that as an institution, the Church always needs to be reformed.  When the Church forgets that Jesus is the leader, then we, like James and John, work to be the ‘first of all’.  

Leif Kehrwald
October 7, 2018

​The creation story in the Bible tells us that God made us, humans, in God’s image. Male and female God created us. And in our passage from Genesis today, we hear the story of the creation of woman as a suitable partner for man,. And it concludes with the phrase,  “the two shall become one flesh.”
 
Think for a moment and put the two key points together:
The two shall become one flesh . . . made in God’s image.

Leif Kehrwald
September 23, 2018

Jesus sat down with his friends and followers, took a child into his arms, and said to them, “whoever receives a child such as this, receives me.”
 
I learned the raw, core meaning of this passage in 1982 from the Catholic community of St. Patrick in Spokane, Washington. This was our parish at the time when our first son, Nicolo, was born. The community embraced him and claimed him as their own, as they did with other babies born to families in the parish. With frozen casseroles, a strong mom’s support network, ongoing offers for babysitting, and a simple desire to catch a glimpse of the new baby, the people of St. Pat’s claimed him as their own. 

September 16, 2018
Gabe Triplet

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Sr. Phyllis Jaszkowiak
August 19, 2018

We are invited to a great feast!  “Wisdom has spread her table” and she calls us to “come eat of her food and drink her wine”, so that we may “advance in the way of understanding”.  There are a few requisites: “whoever is simple turn in here, to those who lack understanding come eat of the food and drink of the wine.  Forsake foolishness that you may live”.

​The readings present two types of hunger, God’s concern for both, and two types of bread for response.  The message I have today is that the Body of Christ, we the Church, are called to do the same, respond to both types of hunger with both types of bread.

Leif Kehrwald
July 29, 2018
17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

“Grandpa ‘Owl’, I am always hungry.”
 
What my younger son, Luke, said when he was four or five years old. We dropped him and his brother at their grandfather’s house to stay the weekend. Luke wasn’t too sure about it all, and so he at least needed to state his most important basic need. “I am always hungry!” (His grandad’s name was Al, but as four-year-old, Luke thought it was Owl.)

Leif Kehrwald
15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

​If there were such a thing as a Prophets-of-the-Bible awards ceremony, our prophet today, Amos, would surely take home two of them. Hands down he would win the “doom and gloom” award for the harsh manner in which he told the Israelite people that God rejected their luxury lifestyle, their burnt offerings, and that their infidelities would lead to their destruction.
 
Amos would also likely win the “justice” award for his bravery in calling people to task about the gaps he saw between the luxurious lives of the rich, and the heavy taxes on the poor.