The mandate of discipleship, two thousand years ago and now, is to point to God as the source of all life. Only when we choose God can we choose life.

The challenge for each of us is to expand our vision and our hearts to embrace the whole family of God. Can we look beyond our blood relatives and beyond our national boundaries to include all of God’s children in our love and concern?

St. Paul outlines a high standard of what it takes to be a trustworthy bishop or deacon. Certainly, anyone who exercises power in the Church should be hospitable, level-headed, and “not a lover of money.” But there are other qualities that should not be missed.

This truth of being a sinful human being and simultaneously being loved by the creator is a mysterious paradox.

Almost always, I find medicine in people who revive my gratitude, whether over a meal, in a liturgy, or simply witnessing their forbearance and vulnerability.

Our hearts know the shape of the words spoken by a true teacher. They sound like those written by Augustine to God. And they sound like those written by Paul to his friends in Thessalonica. Perhaps today is a good time to read St. Paul’s words aloud.

Naomi and Ruth have come to a crossroads. We encounter them there, at this intersection of loyalty and truth, carrying the weight of their expectation. It is an invitation for us to focus on God at the center.

To call Mary “Theotokos”—Mother of God—is at once to recognize our own vocation to birth and protect the Christ-Child, who gestates like a seed in each of us.

To be fashioned in the image of God is to be life-giving, generative, imaginative, full of fecundity. All of us are gifted with this potential.

As we taste God’s loveliness and long to dwell in God’s house, we learn to become pilgrims and psalmists ourselves