Month: January 2011

Kingdom of the Poor

In the readings for last week’s Sunday Mass, we saw Jesus as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy (Isaiah 9) that a divine king, a Son of David, would appear in the north of Israel and give light to the people there. In the readings for todays’ Mass (4th Sunday of Ordinary Time), we see Jesus …

Kingdom of the Poor Read More »

Aquinas: The Biblical Approach of the Model Catholic Theologian

Today is the Feast Day of St. Thomas Aquinas! In honor of that, I thought I’d cover some ground I’ve been over before, namely, Thomas’ role as a model of Catholic theology and his primary focus on Scripture. Perhaps most striking—at least to some—is Thomas’ insistence on the priority of the literal-historical sense of Scripture. …

Aquinas: The Biblical Approach of the Model Catholic Theologian Read More »

Agnes Day

Today’s saint, Agnes of Rome, is long overdue for a revival. Why? She was probably the most revered female martyr of the early Church — outstanding in a field that included Blandina and Perpetua, among others. St. Jerome was not a man easily impressed, but of today’s saint, his near-contemporary, he wrote: “Every people, whatever …

Agnes Day Read More »

Word Association

Christmas came early for me in 2010. My biggest present arrived, date-stamped from the Vatican, in my email in mid-November. It was Pope Benedict’s new missive, the apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini (“The Word of the Lord”) — the most important magisterial document on Sacred Scripture in nearly half a century. The Word of God is …

Word Association Read More »