St. Gabriel's Passionist Parish

The gospel for today can be a bit shocking. We see Jesus in a bit of a rage. He was disgusted with the way the religious authorities allowed the sacred space of the temple, the house of God, to be turned into market place for the selling of animals and the changing of money. Jesus takes it upon himself to clean up the temple and return it to what it is meant to be, a house of prayer and praise. (more…)

The motto of our Passionist Community is “May the Passion of Christ be always in our hearts.” I think most of us have had an experience in our lives which we could describe as ‘fixed forever in my mind’ something we’ll never forget. We’ll never forget seeing the twin towers collapsing. We’ll never forget seeing the awesome power of the sea as we remember the tsunami that struck the coast of Japan. We’ll never forget the birth of our first child. We’ll never forget the look on someone’s face. These things are fixed forever in our mind. (more…)

The biblical story of the Great Flood, with its harrowing destruction, comes to us from the mists of ancient history. Scholars generally believe it to have come from an early account of a disaster that struck Mesopotamia centuries upon centuries ago. But the Hebrew and Christian traditions interpret the flood in the context of history made intelligible by God. It has moral and spiritual import, not only for the people but for the person. (more…)

May we all be blessed with friends like those of the paralyzed man in today’s gospel. We have no idea whether or not this man was from Capernaum itself or whether his good friends carried him a long distance. Their devotion to him was so great that the fact they couldn’t get into the house would not deter them. They worked their way up on to the roof, took off the tiles and lowered their friend down to Jesus. The great healer had come to town, and they were intent on having their friend healed by Jesus. They wanted their friend to walk, and Jesus was the one who would make that happen. Jesus must have been amazed at their loyalty and dedication to this friend. Seeing their faith, their trust in His ability to heal, Jesus looked at their friend and assured him his sins were forgiven. (more…)

Have you ever had the experience of waiting and waiting for a doctor’s appointment and finally you meet the doctor and it seems like the appointment is over in a flash, you are out of the office in no time. You’re not too happy, you found your appointment unsatisfactory. You feel your doctor should have spent more time with you, asked you more questions about how you felt and how things are with your family, maybe questioned you about stress on your job. But no, he took your blood pressure, checked your heart and lungs, checked you medication. The check up centered on you, you physically but not you as a person, you as an anxious, depressed or stressed person. You feel cheated, resentful that your doctor was too busy to spend a bit more time with you as a person. He’s not a bad doctor, just a very busy doctor, as most are. (more…)