Farmers work hard. They worked even harder in Jesus’s time, but for all the work they did, they couldn’t make a plant grow—even today’s farmers cannot make a plant grow. What is the farmer’s job then? To help the plant grow. A farmer removes...
The Gospel shows us that Jesus appointed his Twelve Apostles primarily so that they could be with him. To be with Jesus is the first reason to be an apostle. Even though the Greek word for apostle means someone who is sent, the Gospel makes it...
The crowds surrounding Jesus were weighed down by spiritual, emotional, and physical afflictions. Jesus would not be “crushed” by the weight of their burdens, rather, “He took on [their] infirmities and carried [their] sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4). When...
A famous painting, The Call of St. Matthew by Caravaggio, has St. Matthew pointing at himself as if he is saying, “Who, me?” Sometimes I wonder when I see a problem, “Why does no one do anything about this?”...
The paralytic relied on four men to bring him close enough to Christ to obtain both physical and spiritual healing. These men were likely good friends of the paralytic. Friends draw us closer to Christ. According to St. Maximilian Kolbe,...
