Fr. Ricardo Chinchilla, CJM Hear Ye, Hear Ye! The Angel coming from heaven revealed the coordinates to find the savior on Christmas; he said: “This is the sign for you; you will find a child wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” A child? A child savior? How strange; in our society, every…
Among the guardians of those who wait is Joseph, a man of dreams and calloused hands, the last patriarch of ancient Israel. He tells a story of love, and his doubts about receiving the woman he loved, a human story of expectations and crises. Before they moved in together, Mary found herself pregnant; then Joseph…
This Sunday, we have three announcements in one:1 – There is a Kingdom: new heavens and a new earth, a new world pressing to come into being. The two prophets (first readings and gospel) do not say what the Kingdom is, but where. Softly they reveal: “near.” God is near; he is here. His journey lands…
On Calvary, among the three condemned to the same torture, Luke places his last parable of mercy. It bursts out of a man’s soul, indeed of a thug, one who, in his helplessness, as a man nailed to death, squeezes out from his crucifixion pain, the honey of compassion for his fellow neighbor, who happens…
Fr. Ricardo Chinchilla, CJM Where is the good news about God and man in this Gospel of catastrophes, in this flashing of swords and falling planets? The reading starts by reassuring us. Beyond deceitful prophets, beyond wars and betrayals, even when hatred should be rampant everywhere, there is that poignant expression: “But not a hair…
Fr. Ricardo Chinchilla, CJM The Sadducees in our Sunday Gospel want to ridicule Jesus and the belief in the resurrection, describing a woman seven times widowed and never a mother (Luke 20:27-38). Perhaps we imagine eternity as duration rather than intensity. We all know the wonder of the “first time”: the first time we traveled,…
Fr. Ricardo Chinchilla, CJM The art of the encounter, according to Jesus. First scene: characters on a quest. There is a rabbi who fills the streets with people and a curious little man, a thief as he suggests, the leader of the unclean in Jericho, a tax collector, rich to prove business is good, which…
Fr. Ricardo Chinchilla, CJM The parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector shows us the grammar of prayer. The rules are simple and apply to everyone. The first rule: If you put the “self” at the center, no relationship will work—not for couples, not with children or friends, much less with God. We live and…
The Gospel takes us to a school of prayer from the point of view of a widow, a beautiful figure of a woman, strong and dignified, not giving up, fragile and indomitable at the same time. Jesus told a parable about the need to pray always. But we are so busy, which makes us think…
Fr. Ricardo Chinchilla, CJM The healed Samaritan this Sunday has something to share with us. He wants not only the gift but the Giver. He knows it’s not about the healing but the Healer. He is in awe of a God with his feet in the mud of our streets and eyes on our sores. “The glory…