Church of the Mediator

The Saints at Rest Today is the transferred commemoration of All Saints’, which is actually a merging of three holy days: All Hallows’ Eve on 31 October (which gives us the holiday of Halloween), All Saints’ Day on 1st November and All Souls’ or the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed on the 2nd.  These […]

What Do You Want Me to Do for You? Our Gospel reading this morning marks a turning point in Mark’s Gospel.  This is the last healing miracle Jesus performs.  He and the disciples are heading to Jerusalem where eventually he will be arrested and crucified.  He is in Jericho taking the pilgrimage route from Galilee, […]

We Don’t Know What We’re Asking There’s an old bit of wisdom that states that if one really doesn’t want to know the answer to a particular question, then don’t ask the question.  In today’s reading from the book of Job in the Hebrew scriptures and from the Gospel we hear examples of question being […]

It’s All About Grace A man died and found himself standing before St. Peter and the Pearly Gates, the Book of Life was open on Peter’s desk.  He looked up the new arrival’s name and assured him that his name was indeed written in the Book.  Peter tells him there’s one more test, the man […]

St. Francis’ Gift Tomorrow [October 4] is the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi a thirteenth century friar about whom little is known, and much is speculated and legendary.  At various times of his life he was a soldier and prisoner of war, a party animal, and ultimately the founder of one of the largest […]

Whose Gospel? or Who’s In and Who’s Out? Today’s readings offer a rich variety of topics.  The first reading from the Book of Esther is the only time in appears in our lectionary.  It’s set during the late exile after Persia has conquered Babylon.  This is the only book in the entire Bible that does […]

True Greatness In today’s Gospel Jesus again announces his approaching Passion, and by example begins to teach his disciples the meaning of greatness. On his way to Jerusalem, he reminds them a second time that he is going there to suffer, to die, and to rise on the third day. How can they possibly understand […]

Remember There are events that are forever etched into our memories.  Events that simply recalling the event, or the date, takes us back to the moment when we first heard the news.  For many of our elders it was the attack on Pearl Harbor, for my generation it was President Kennedy’s assassination, or Neil Armstrong’s […]

Just a Crumb This morning’s Gospel brings us two different healing stories they occur outside of Jesus’ home territory, one of them will affect the course of the Church’s history.  Today’s Gospel passage includes two healing stories in Tyre and Decapolis — Gentile territories historically hostile to Jews — illustrating that the reign of God […]

Tradition This morning our attention shifts back to Mark’s Gospel and its push to get into Jesus’ actions and conversations that set him apart from the various Jewish establishments of his day. Author and Jesuit priest Anthony DeMello tells a story about an ashram cat. An ashram is a spiritual retreat center or monastery in […]