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 obstacles to a plant’s growth, like weeds. The farmer also gives the plant what it needs to grow and be healthy, if necessary,...

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 clear that the apostle, first of all, needs to be with Jesus. There’s no better reason to be an apostle than to be committed...

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 my anxieties, my afflictions, my worries weigh us down, I can cast them confidently onto Jesus. Nothing is so...

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?” or “Someone should say something.” Today’s Gospel is an invitation to ask myselves, “Who, me?” Christ often calls me to say or do something, but I defer or...

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, “God sends us friends to be our firm support in the whirlpool of struggle. In the company of friends, we will find strength to...

I don’t know if the leper visited the priest or not, but in spite of the healing he received, he didn’t respect Jesus’s request to be silent about it. Because he spread around the news of his healing, he made it difficult for Jesus to work. I can speculate that this man’s disobedience prevented others from drawing close to Christ for healing. My sin has negative...

Pope Pius XI wrote that our bodies, "should serve as instruments for the interior sanctification of our souls, or to use the words of the Apostle Paul, as instruments of justice unto God." Today, let's pray that God will reign in our bodies, and that our bodies will glorify Him.