Whether you’re a seasoned theologian or just beginning your spiritual journey, our weekly meditations offer a welcoming space for exploration and reflection. Deepen your faith and explore theological concepts with Fr. Tom Kuffel. Our written meditations offer a unique opportunity to connect with the divine and gain a deeper understanding of your faith. Let us guide you through thought-provoking themes that will enrich your understanding. Explore this week’s meditation or learn more about Fr. Tom Kuffel.
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Divine Judgment Comes Like a Thief in the Night/ El Juicio Divino Llega Silenciosamente en la Noche
Thirty-Third Sunday Year C/ Trigésimo Tercer Domingo del Año C Rev. Thomas Kuffel God’s judgements are just, but deceptions come. Deceptions use theatrics to cause fear. Such theatrics, Jesus explains, ought not deceive us. Yet, rumors and rebellions “must first happen” (Luke 21: 9). Earthquakes will rattle and mountains will fall. Volcanos will erupt and fires blaze as the winds blow leaving destruction. Storms blacken the horizon, and fear comes, knowing the winds, the rains, and hail devastate. Yet, Jesus remarks, Fear not. “I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you…
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Irrational Rational/Irracional Racional
Twenty-Sixth Sunday Ordinary Time Year C/Vigésimo Sexto Domingo del Tiempo Ordinario Año C Rev. Thomas Kuffel The Rich Man, nameless and unknown to God, sits suffering, dying of thirst, and reasoned during his life that his wealth made him safe. Lazarus, known by name to the Father, sits in the bosom of Abraham comforted, despite the suffering that crushed his earthly life. Human reason would reverse this outcome. The Rich Man should be comforted and Lazarus the poor man should be condemned. Yet, God’s ways are not ours. Our rational seems irrational to God and God’s rational seems irrational to…
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Use Things Not People/ Usa las cosas, no a las personas
Twenty-fifth Sunday Year C/ Vigésimo quinto domingo del año C Rev. Thomas Kuffel “Never use another person as a means to an end” is Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative. It protects our dignity, knowing how destructive manipulation and deception are. His imperative trying to protect dignity creates integrity in which a person always acts righteously, even at the expense of personal suffering. This teaching is none other than the Golden Rule revised in which Jesus tells us, “As you wish that men would do to you, do so to them” (Lk 6:31). The Golden Rule respects another because we respect ourselves.…
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Twisted Thinking
Twenty-Fourth Sunday Year C Rev. Thomas Kuffel The Parable of the Prodigal Son twists our thinking. The son took his inheritance and went to a wild place exhausting himself in debauchery. Depraved, he abused himself; others abused him. Wasted, the pigsty of poverty buried him. Sadly, this narrative is common. People waste their lives on pleasures that last for moments only to lose their dignity and sanctity. Despite our debauchery, our Father restores our dignity with his mercy, sanctifying us in his grace. Ready to welcome our return, nothing prevents our Father from forgiving us because “his mercy endures forever”…
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Restoring Broken Pride
Twenty-second Sunday Ordinary Time Year C Rev. Thomas Kuffel Having pride in oneself is the essence of life. Pride promotes honor in oneself for having received divine charisms and sanctifying graces to accomplish great deeds. It creates self-respect. Through pride, we come to know ourselves and it is in knowing ourselves, we understand our true identity. We are beautifully and wonderfully made in the image of God. Knowing ourselves allows us to improve ourselves and come to knowledge not only personal but also supernatural. Knowledge, the gift of the Holy Spirit, opens the divine doors to behold our hearts beheld…
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Universalism?
Celebrating life brings intense joy especially when a child is born. Yet, Scripture tells us there is more rejoicing in heaven over one soul that repents than any other event (cf Luke 15:7). Repentance brings forth new life for we were once dead in our sins and through reconciliation, we live (cf. Luke 15:32). Once lost, we now have divine life, reborn in Christ. Resurrected, Christ comes into our lives especially where sin once ravished our souls of its dignity. He touched our wounds with his grace and transformed our lives becoming temples of the Holy Spirit. Repentance, however, comes…
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The Future Is Faith
Nineteenth Sunday Ordinary Time Year C Rev. Thomas Kuffel Faith, a gift given at baptism, glistens like a diamond with its many facets. Faith penetrates these facets and sees into the abyss of the divine infinite. The divine infinite, God’s glory, a multifaceted reality, reveals his power, perfection, and presence to those who cultivate the gift. Faith explores these facets, seeing God’s power to create out of nothing, then recreate everything after the fall. Faith explores God’s perfection revealing He has no flaws and those who live their faith will have their flaws honed. Through faith we enter into the…
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The Wealth of Wisdom
Eighteenth Sunday Ordinary Time Year C Rev. Thomas Kuffel Vanity is fleeting. It lacks substance, has no depth, and is superficial. From appearances, vanity allures. As the sirens chant their luring melodies, those who listen seek her seduction and fall prey to her charm. Yet, Proverbs tells us, “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised” (Pro 31:30). Wisdom, personified as a woman, “is more beautiful than the sun (Wis 7:29). “She is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of…
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Divine Visitation
Rev. Thomas Kuffel Two sisters, close to Jesus, invite Him into their home. Martha and Mary dedicated disciples of Jesus also become controversial. Martha complains because she is worried about many things, busy taking care of the home and hospitality. Mary, content at the feet of Jesus revealing she is a disciple, intent upon hearing Him preach, contrasts her sister. She is not worried. She is at rest. The two sisters have a brother also, Lazarus. He too is part of the family, and plays a key role as he dies only to have Jesus raise him from the dead.…
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Victimhood
Fifteenth Sunday Ordinary Time Rev. Thomas Kuffel Victimhood rules because evil reigns. Evil, those acts that miss the mark and treat others unjustly, cause devastation and dehumanization. The source of evil comes not from individuals who victimize their victims, but from evil himself, Lucifer. He is the source and cause of evil in our world. He inspires evil and seduces others to act evilly. Evil doers think they are entitled and so abuse and attack others to gain their ill-gotten portion. How sad! Victimhood is indiscriminate as Lucifer respects no one, not even himself. He has no prejudice, nor any…
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Peace
Fourteenth Sunday Year C Rev. Thomas Kuffel Nothing so devastating occurs as when another rejects us. It cuts to the core of our being. Hurt, humiliated, and outcasted, rejection causes intense internal strife. Those who suffer such rejections: divorce, prejudice, discrimination, and a host of other infractions, create wounds that endure a lifetime. These wounds need healing. Most importantly, the memory and the imagination of these wounds need care, sometimes professional, but always spiritual. Peace heals. Worse that being rejected is to reject. To publicly reject another reveals a hardened heart. To attack and ridicule another because of their differences…
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Breaking Soul Ties and Unholy Alliances
Soul ties can be formed through a variety of activities that are enslaving. Typically, people associate soul ties with partners engaging in sexual or intimate acts; yet there are other activities that can also create soul ties enslaving your soul in dysfunctional or destructive acts. Ultimately these ties curse the person. First and probably the most spoken about are sexual soul ties. These occur for a variety of reasons. To begin with, any sexual action outside of marriage including partial acts, homosexual acts, pornography, rape, abuse, incest and impure or unnatural sexual acts even within marriage can bind a person.…
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Christ Our Passover
Sts. Peter and Paul Solemnity Rev. Thomas Kuffel Oddly, St. Paul tells us, “Christ, our Paschal Lamb, has been sacrificed” (I Cor 5:7). This fulfills the prophecy of St. John the Baptist who on seeing his cousin declares, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). For us Gentiles separated by centuries from Israel and the Jerusalem Temple, such symbolism seems doubtful. Jesus is the real Passover Lamb Who replaced the spotless male lambs sacrificed upon the altar rail in the temple during the Passover. Do we grasp the mystery of this statement?…
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The Eucharistic Sacred Secret
Corpus Christi Sunday Year C Rev. Thomas Kuffel Secrets seduce. They draw us as a treasure map does, enticing us to explore the hiddenness. Not all secrets, however, are seductive. Some are scary, others threaten. Not every secret needs to be known either, for some have forbidden and hidden knowledge that ought not be exposed, especially those concerning evil. Other secrets, although they have forbidden and hidden knowledge, are dangerous not because of their knowledge but rather, because we fail to understand. We are incapable of grasping what is hidden because we are not ready to receive. The Eucharist is…
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Everything I Have is Yours
The father tells the Prodigal Sons in the parable all that I have is yours. Can you imagine the gift the father is giving his son. He even proved it by giving his younger son everything he asked for, knowing he would waste it. If the parable tells us that the father is willing to give anything and everything, how much more so our heavenly Father. He wants to bestow upon us all that He gave to his Son as we read Scripture: “Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason I told you that he will take from what…
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Pentecost: The Promise!
Many Christians today have isolated the New Testament from the Old Testament. This heresy, called Marcionism, divided the Old Testament from the New Testament because the God of the New Testament was so much different than the Old. This heresy, which was taught around 144 AD, is alive and well today. Many Christian scholars read the New Testament without understanding the Old and in so doing, come up with teachings that are either absurd on one side or hollow on the other side. Pentecost and Confirmation are such teachings. Many Christians are so Christocentric that they forget the Holy Spirit Who…
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Peace I Give You!
In the providence of God, the eternal design of the Father, the hour came for Christ to depart. He would leave his Apostles, with his Mother Mary, but only after he had given them instructions. The Apostles had a mission to perform and these instructions were the faithful expression of the Father’s will: Go and Preach! The Apostles had to wait for the Holy Spirit, the gift of the Father to empower them to preach. It is clear that the source of the Apostles’ strength is the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who guides the Church in the way of…
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Abide in Me!
Self-glorification of the body has become our worship. Yet, Paul tells us to glorify God with our body. Our culture, however, focuses on personal enhancement through exercise, diet, and even surgeries. Society declares we stay in style adorning ourselves with jewelry, garments, and perfumes to be attractive. Beauticians embellish our looks and make up covers all our flaws. Sadly we sanctify our bodies, forgetting they are temples of the Holy Spirit. With all the effort, money and exercise, our bodies fail and die but there is one exception, Jesus Christ! Though His body — His humanity — was defaced, disfigured,…
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Abide in Me!
Where is Love? Love symbolized by the heart though is not in the heart. Love is not of the flesh, but of spirit. The heart merely symbolizes life and love. Love dwells in the soul and is a gift from God. Love, then, is not an object, but a person, Jesus. He is Love and we love Him because He loved us first. Many love but love wrongly. They love objects or worse, they reduce persons, including Jesus to an object. Objectification of another easily uses the other for selfish gain. But love is anything but selfish gain. Love selflessly gives…
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Sorrowful Mother
“The Lamb who is in the center of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of life-giving water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Rev. 7:17) Tears of sorrow cover the earth. Day after day, tears flow because of the pain, hurt, and guilt we endure on account of sin. It began with Adam and Eve but it ended with Mary as her tears flowed at the foot of the Cross. She, the Mother of All Sorrows, embraced the life of her Son fulfilling the prophecy of Simeon. He foretold that a sword…