When you hear that someone is “acting out” it usually isn’t heard as a compliment.
McKenna
Saints Like Us (Hebrews 12.1)
There’s an instinct to idealize the saints as entirely different from the rest of us, off in another league at some unattainable level of holiness and favor with God.
Stumbling Along ‘The Way’ (Mark 10:35-45)
Most of us know the image backing the word “scandalize;” i.e., somebody tripping over a stone in the road.
Hearing The Word in Pressured Times
Hearing The Word in Pressured Times (Lk. 5:1-11) Here are some things to note in this Gospel about Jesus getting himself involved in a fishing expedition with Peter and his friends. For one thing, there’s Peter’s state of mind. He’s exhausted. All night on the...
Formation: Learning to See God’s Presence
“Formation:” Learning to See God’s Presence (Mk. 3:7-12) One way of looking at this story of healing in Mark is to see it as a case of the wrong people discerning the right things. On the one hand, you’ve got these hoards of people following Jesus, and in so dense...
Who is Family – Fr. Tom McKenna, CM
“Who is Family?” (Mk 3:31-5) To better digest this story about Jesus’ question, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” I ask you to try a little exercise in imagination. You’re at a family wedding, brothers and sisters, mother and father, cousins and children and...
Getting in the Spirit
Father Tom McKenna offers the following reflection Getting “In the Spirit” (Samuel 18; Romans 8) The story of David and Goliath is set inside a larger narrative about the fall of Saul and the rise of David. And the difference between these two is that one, Saul,...
Hannah’s Prayer – Fr. Tom McKenna
Fr. Tom Mckenna offers this reflection on Hannah’s Prayer (I Samuel 1:9-20) In a talk on the spirituality of the Twelve Steps, the speaker told a story of a woman who was being swept along in a powerful ocean current. She was a swimmer and so at first wasn’t...
Reading the Signs: Dark or Light?
In this reflection, written for a celebration of the feast of the Epiphany Fr. Tom McKenna offers thoughts on how do I understand this particular story -- how am I reading the signs -- that is so outside my usual way of looking at the world? You could look on this...
Mary and Darkness – Fr. Tom Mckenna reflects
Father Tom McKenna offers this final Advent reflection - Mary and Darkness There’s a verse somewhere in the Advent readings which sets a tone for much of the season. “Over you shall come a great darkness.” If you heard that line standing by itself and out of the...
God’s dreams for us
In "God's dreams for us" Fr. Tom McKenna reflects on a God who wants us to flourish. Advent is a season of dreams: the peaceable Kingdom, exiles coming back home, the web of death pierced through, crooked roads made straight. These are images of Yahweh’s end time that...
A Story that Tells the Teller – McKenna
Sitting around that collection box in the treasury hall and watching the crowd, what story would I tell?
