Signs

No one image or model, however elusive or rich, can do more than offer glimpses and hints toward the divine.

Textual Overview The Gospel of Luke has a clear narrative path that begins with links to Israel’s past and God’s promises to her. Those promises are now going to be fulfilled in the life, death, resu...

In 2002, M. Night Shyamalan released his film Signs , about a widowed former pastor, Graham Hess, who suddenly sees crop circles appear on his farm. At first he thinks they are just the product of mi...

Earl Palmer frequently tells the story of a cross-country with two other young pastors early in his pastoral ministry. They were making a cross-country trip from the East Coast back to California. I...

Let us not simply pray for a sign, if that’s what we want from God, but pray for a discerning heart — a heart open to seeing what God wishes to show us, able to reject what He is not, and willing to f...

Jesus’ first sign Uniquely, John refers to Jesus’ miracles as “signs,” and changing the water into wine is recorded as being Jesus’ first sign. The use of the term “sign” is significant in that Joh...

Textual Overview The Gospel of Luke has a clear narrative path that begins with links to Israel’s past and God’s promises to her. Those promises are now going to be fulfilled in the life, death, resu...

Jesus’ first sign Uniquely, John refers to Jesus’ miracles as “signs,” and changing the water into wine is recorded as being Jesus’ first sign. The use of the term “sign” is significant in that Joh...

Pastor: In the name of God the Father: People: who showed his power through miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt and is still the same God we worship today. Pastor: In the name of God t...

Ancient lens What's the historical context? The Worst Is Yet To Come I wonder if some of Jesus’ Galilean crew regretted volubly admiring the beauty of Herod the Great’s temple. I can see Pete...

Advent 2023: Make some noise Alive, Awake, and Alert AIM commentary Ancient lens What's the historical context? The Worst Is Yet To Come I wonder if some of Jesus’ Galilean crew regre...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? A Gospel for a Jewish Community Matthew’s Gospel presents a favorable view of the Jewish Law and its traditions. In contrast to Luke...

AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? A Gospel for a Jewish Community Matthew’s Gospel presents a favorable view of the Jewish Law and its traditions. In...

On the whole, though, Catholics (and Protestants) aren’t identifiable at first glance. Yet, on Ash Wednesday I’m always surprised by the number of people I see on the streets and in the subways sporti...

God desires that we be like living signs of the kingdom, to provide visual aids of what life will look like one day when the kingdom is here fully. We will not bring the Kingdom or build the kingdom, ...

Go online and find a picture of a cute-looking kitten. Apparently, half the Internet is made up of cat photos, so this shouldn’t be too hard. Print it out and then pin it on a dart board. You can prob...

When the telegraph was the fastest means of long-distance communication, a young man applied for a job as a Morse code operator. Answering an ad in the newspaper, he went to the address that was liste...

In Silence, Shusaku Endo writes of the journey of Portuguese Jesuits journeying to Japan. It is a conversation about those who intend to take the path of Jesus, only to find they are on the path of Ju...

Sometimes we become so lonely, we'll do whatever we can to have some social interaction. Vulgar and with a quick wit, Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) was a significant short-story writer and social cri...

No sign that ever was given To faithful or faithless eyes Showed ever beyond clouds riven So clear a paradise. Earth’s creeds may be seventy times seven And blood have defiled each creed But if such b...

Worship is a meeting at the centre so that our lives are centered in God and not lived eccentrically. We worship so that we live in response to and from this centre, the living God. Failure to worship...

Don’t see your struggle as an interruption to life but as preparation for life. No one said the road would be easy or painless. But God will use your mess for something good. “This trouble you’re in i...

It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us; it is the very sign of His presence.

The clothes we wear are what people see. Only God can look on the heart. The outward signs are important. They reveal something of what is inside. If charity is there, it will become visible outwardly...

A Sacrament is an external sign, by which the Lord seals on our consciences his promises of good-will toward us, in order to sustain the weakness of our faith, and we in turn testify our piety towards...

In all things that live there are certain irregularities, and deficiencies which are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf...

We want big directional signs from God. God just wants us to pay attention.

A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.

Gratitude develops faith. The surest path out of a slump is marked by the road sign "thank you, God."

When suffering comes, we yearn for some sign from God, forgetting we have just had one.