Bulletin column for St. Mary's Parish, Griffith, Ind. Years ago, Barbara Walters famously asked actress Katharine Hepburn what type of tree would she like to be, if she saw herself as a tree. The actress responded that she’d like to be a sturdy and solid oak. Much like Ms. Hepburn, we’d like to be like oak trees. We’d like to stand tall and proud, free of flaws and always providing for others. We’d like to be the dependable one that everybody looks up to. Yet, all of us have

Bulletin column for St. Mary's Parish in Griffith, Ind. The notion of the Transfiguration can be puzzling, and I imagine it was none too different for Peter, James and John, the three disciples who were there as it happened. Here they are, sleeping peacefully, when they open their eyes and have no idea what this miraculous thing transpiring before them really is. I see the three disciples as precursors to Sherlock Holmes. They know they awoke to something, but all they have i

Bulletin column for St. Mary's Parish in Griffith, Ind. Temptation is a funny thing. Whenever we face it, we’re made an offer we can’t refuse for something we’re convinced we need. It seems like everybody wins, right? Yet, once we step back from what’s being dangled in front of us, we can see the backstory. In today’s Gospel, we see Jesus being tempted, and really showing us how to deal with temptation. He’s promised all the worldly honor he could want, yet he realizes that G

Bulletin column for St. Mary's Parish in Griffith, Ind. Should your life attract or scare? That line from “The Summons,” a hymn found in our Gather book, really has a lot to do with today’s Gospel. Here is this man Jesus, stepping into a boat with men he barely knows. They’re tired. They’ve been fishing all day and caught nothing. Here he comes and tells them to cast their nets into the deep water. They do it. Why? Something about Jesus attracts them. Maybe it was the words h

Bulletin column for St. Mary's Parish in Griffith, Ind., and Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in New Chicago, Ind. We’re afraid of love. We’re afraid to say it. We’re afraid to feel it. We’re afraid to express it. In our second reading today, Paul tells us all these great things about love. He says that it’s patient and kind, never jealous or pompous, never inflated or rude, but always “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”