It was the last year of my term in office as Dean of our Seminarians in Chicago, and it was the most difficult year I had ever suffered.

I’d like to borrow a very good story from Miguel de Umanumo, a Spanish philosopher and novelist from the 20^th century about the origin of hell.

The Gospel on this 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time presents us with Jesus’ beautiful teaching on forgiveness and an encouragement for us to forgive one another, as God forgives all our wrongdoings.

Last week’s gospel gave us an occasion to celebrate God’s love for His people by pointing out that Jesus shared His divine authority with the people He loved.

I have often wondered what the angels in heaven were thinking when they heard Jesus tell the apostles that He would share His divine authority with them: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.; whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth will be considered loosed in heaven. 

One day, I was reading my Facebook page as I always do at certain times of the day and I saw this beautiful quote, “God doesn’t say NO to our prayers. God has three answers, either he says, YES, AT A LATER TIME, or I HAVE A BETTER IDEA.

How did you encounter Christ? This was a common question when I was a seminarian when we were asked about our vocation story. I was amazed when some seminarians told their story to hear that they had encountered Christ in a sort of spectacular way.

God’s word to us in this Sunday's liturgy are words we really need to hear and to welcome warmly.

The Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls; when he finds one of great value, he goes and sells everything he owns and buys it.

One of the most frustrating things for a farmer is to have weeds in his fields. They steal whatever nutrition is there for his grain.