“For where your treasure is, there also your heart will be.” These words of Jesus challenge us to ask ourselves about our real priorities in life. What is most important? One look at how we use our time or spend our money will tells us what is truly important. Then comes the bigger question: do our priorities line up with God’s?

The Old Testament reading reminds us that we can spend our whole lives acquiring things but, in the end, all of our possessions will go to those who haven’t worked for them. This sets us up for the Gospel reading, as Jesus addresses a man who wants him to settle a dispute about an inheritance. As always, Jesus turns the immediate issue into a lesson about a greater truth.

Though we often take the “Our Father” for granted, it is good to remember how remarkable and radical it was for Jesus to begin the prayer not with “Almighty God” or “Mighty King” but with the most personal and intimate name: our Father. Through those words we are invited into a relationship as one of a beloved child coming to ask a loving parent for the things we need.

This Gospel reading challenges us to remember that being busy for the Lord is not the same as being with him, to sit at his feet and hear him in our hearts. Truly that is the “better part.”

Jesus parable of the Good Samaritan is well-known and often quoted. Yet we often miss how Jesus uses the question “Who is my neighbor?” to upend a rigid and impersonal view of the “Law” of the Jewish people. Through an unlikely her--a member of the Samaritans, who were disdained by the Jews--we see an exemplary and sacrificial love.

Evangelization is not a job assigned only to bishops, priests, and religious brothers and sisters. Pope Paul VI insisted that the “task of evangelizing all people constitutes the essential mission of the Church.” And by “the Church,” he meant the Church as a whole—everyone, including the laity. Today’s Gospel reminds us of God’s calling for us to participate in His Work throughout the world, no matter what we do or where we are.

In this Gospel reading, we see Jesus embarking on the most difficult journey of his life. For ten chapters in Luke’s Gospel, beginning with chapter 9, Jesus and his disciples are on the road, making their way to the climactic moment in Salvation History. Knowing what He would suffer, Jesus still kept his “eyes fixed on Jerusalem." Do we have that same courage and dedication to God’s will?

The miracle of multiplying five loaves of bread and two pieces of fish to feed five thousand men (and as many as fifteen to twenty thousand people) is one of the most famous in the Gospels. Apart from providing for the physical needs of those present, Jesus also foreshadows the Holy Eucharist. He “multiplies” Himself miraculously by turning bread and wine into His body and blood so that we will be spiritually fed. That is what today’s Feast of Corpus Christi, which is Latin for “Body of Christ,” calls us to remember.

In today’s Gospel reading, we see that God’s very life is one of communion. In the Trinity, we see a relationship of giving and receiving, a communion of life and love. God exists as a relationship of Persons. He is Three, and yet the “Lord God is One.” How are we to bring this kind of Oneness — of love and communion — to our lives now?

In the last night of his life, Jesus prayed specifically for his followers to have unity. He said that, through unity, the disciples would bear a powerful witness to his name. Why, on the darkest night of his life, was he thinking about that? The answer is seen in his example: in unity, there is love, a sacrificial love between the Father and Son, and between all who believe in him. Christianity has survived, not because of its cleverness or power, but because of its unified love.

Few of us welcome the departure of a loved one from our lives, even more so if we can’t know when we’ll see him or her again. The pain of separation is great, even unbearable. We can imagine how difficult it was for the disciples to Jesus, wondering how the future would play out as they would take on the mission He’d given them. It’s no surprise they had to be nudged into action (as is often true for us).

The readings for the Easter season harken to the first days of Christianity, allowing us to walk in the footsteps of the first Christians as they attempted to follow Christ as part of the young Church.

Have you ever watched a herd of animals as they journey toward a destination? It’s remarkable that their every move seems to be in sync with the entire group. Nature itself shows us that uniting together in community – as one body – is the way God intended us to behave.

Just as Peter denied Jesus three times, now the risen Lord asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?”

There are two sides to Christ’s love. On one side He mercifully loves us wherever he finds us, even in our sin. On the other side, we see that he loves us too much to leave us in that condition, but draws us out to be transformed.

Today we celebrate the greatest of all Christian feasts: Easter Sunday. We come together rejoicing in the goodness of God, knowing that Christ’s resurrection from the dead gives us the hope that we too will rise someday with him.

The readings for Palm, or Passion, Sunday are the most dramatic of the whole year. They recount the entire story of Christ’s death from Holy Thursday through Good Friday. One of the unusual aspects of this week’s Gospel reading is that it is the one time during the year when all of us take part in proclaiming the Word of God by participating in the Gospel reading.

Today’s reading from the Gospel of John tells of a woman who was caught in the sin of adultery, and then caught again--but this time in God’s mercy and love. The account provides not only a striking example of Jesus’ mercy, but also his call to conversion. He offers forgiveness and healing and a call to a new life as he tells her: “Go and sin no more.”

The story of the Prodigal Son is one of the most familiar of all of Jesus’ parables. However, when we look more closely at the historical setting for this story we see that, for Jesus’ original audience in the first century, it would have been a shocking story. Do you know why?

At this midway point in our Lenten journey, today’s readings show us the Exodus, the great journey of the Jewish people out of Egypt. What are we to think of this amazing drama as Moses defied the King of Egypt, risking everything to obey God and lead His people out of their slavery?