From Season to Season

Jesus said to his disciples:  "If your brother sins against you,  go and tell him fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother."--Matthew 18:15 It can be easy for us to look back on the stories found in the gospels and imagine that those women and men listening to Jesus we ideal disciples, living in perfect harmony with one another. If we read the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of Saint Paul, however, we quickly realize that this idyllic community was never a reality. From the earliest days, the Church experienced divisions, disagreements, and dis-ease as believers tried to figure out how to live out the teachings of Jesus individually and as a community of believers. In fact, many of the difficulties we experience in our parishes or religious communities today are the same sorts of challenges faced by those first generations of Christians. The Gospel of Matthew was composed sometime around the year 85. By this time, the ...

On Sunday, April 12, Pope Francis will celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday by offering a Mass in remembrance of the 1.5 million Armenians murdered in the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1918, in what has become known as the " Armenian Genocide ." Among those killed in what has been called the "first genocide of the 20th century," was a bishop of the Armenian Catholic Church : Blessed Ignatius Maloyan. Born in 1869 in Mardin, Turkey, Shokr Allah Maloyan was baptized into the Armenian Catholic Church as an infant. A good student and gifted linguist, he was sent by the local bishop to a nearby convent to begin studies for the priesthood. Ordained in 1896, he took the name Ignatius in honor of Saint Ignatius of Antioch. In November of that year, he was sent to Alexandria, Egypt, to serve as an aid to the Armenian Patriarch. Distinguishing himself for his learning and rhetorical skills, he became a popular speaker and was actively involved in dialogues with the Coptic Chu...