Cesar Fernandez-Stoll

  Gospel text ( Luke 15,1-3.11-32) : Tax collectors and sinners were seeking the company of Jesus, all of them eager to hear what He had to say. But the Pharisees and the scribes frowned at this, mut­tering: «This man welcomes sinners and eats with them». So Jesus told them this parable: «There was a man with two sons. The younger said to his father: ‘Give me my share of the estate’. So the father divided his property between them. Some days later, the younger son gathered all his belongings and started off for a distant land where he squandered his wealth in loose living. Having spent everything, he was hard pressed when a severe famine broke out in that land. So he hired himself out to a well-to-do citizen of that place and was sent to work on a pig farm. So famished was he that he longed to fill his stomach even with the food given to the pigs, but no one offered him anything. Finally coming to his senses, he said: ‘How many of my father's hired men have food to spare,

Gospel text ( Mt 21,33-43.45-46) : Jesus said to the chief priests and elders, «Listen to another example: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a fence around it, dug a hole for the winepress, built a watchtower, leased the vineyard to tenants and then went to a distant country. When harvest time came, the land­owner sent his servants to the tenants to collect his share of the harvest. But the ten­ants seized his servants, beat one, killed another and stoned another. Again the owner sent more servants, but they were treated in the same way. Finally, he sent his son, thinking: ‘They will respect my son’. But when the tenants saw the son, they thought: ‘This is the one who is to inherit the vineyard. Let us kill him and his inheritance will be ours’. So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Now, what will the owner of the vineyard do with the tenants when he comes?». They said to him, «He will bring those evil to an evil end, and lease th

Dear Bill. As hurt we all are by the decision against you by the courts in Canada, never mind which in particular. I do not know if you are in the Catholic faith, but you are a believer in the truth of Christ and as such, you must pay attention to the readings the Catholic church offers us today; Jeremiah 17:5-10, Psalm 1 and Luke 16m 19-31. I have them all in my blog at http://www.CesarFS.blogspot.com Find comfort on the truth and on the fact of you being on the side of God. It is never important to follow the decisions of the humans but that of God and for that, you are in the right truck. I am really nobody to tell you this, but if you get close to God, you can feel the assurance and the peace His truth brings.

1 How blessed is anyone who rejects the advice of the wicked and does not take a stand in the path that sinners tread, nor a seat in company with cynics, 2 but who delights in the law of Yahweh and murmurs his law day and night. 3 Such a one is like a tree planted near streams; it bears fruit in season and its leaves never wither, and every project succeeds. 4 How different the wicked, how different! Just like chaff blown around by the wind 6 For Yahweh watches over the path of the upright, but the path of the wicked is doomed.

5 Yahweh says this, 'Accursed be anyone who trusts in human beings, who relies on human strength and whose heart turns from Yahweh. 6 Such a person is like scrub in the wastelands: when good comes, it does not affect him since he lives in the parched places of the desert, uninhabited, salt land. 7 'Blessed is anyone who trusts in Yahweh, with Yahweh to rely on. 8 Such a person is like a tree by the waterside that thrusts its roots to the stream: when the heat comes it has nothing to fear, its foliage stays green; untroubled in a year of drought, it never stops bearing fruit. 9 'The heart is more devious than any other thing, and is depraved; who can pierce its secrets? 10 I, Yahweh, search the heart, test the motives, to give each person what his conduct and his actions deserve. Jeremiah 17:5-10

  Gospel text ( Luke 16,19-31) : Jesus said to his disciples, «Once there was a rich man who dressed in purple and fine linen and feasted every day. At his gate lay Lazarus, a poor man covered with sores, who longed to eat just the scraps falling from the rich man's table. Even dogs used to come and lick his sores. »It happened that the poor man died and angels carried him to take his place with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. From hell where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham afar off, and with him Lazarus at rest. He called out: ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus with the tip of his finger dipped in water to cool my tongue, for I suffer so much in this fire’. Abraham replied: ‘My son, remember that in your lifetime you were well-off while the lot of Lazarus was misfortune. Now he is in comfort and you are in agony. But that is not all. Between your place and ours a great chasm has been fixed, so that no one can cross over fro

  Gospel text ( Mathew 20,17-28) : When Jesus was going to Jerusalem, he took the Twelve aside and said to them on the way, «See, we are going to Jerusalem. There the Son of Man will be given over to the chief priests and the teachers of the Law who will condemn him to death. They will hand him over to the foreigners who will mock him, scourge him and crucify him. But he will be raised to life on the third day». Then the mother of James and John came to Jesus with her sons, and she knelt down to ask a favor. Jesus said to her, «What do you want?». And she answered, «Here you have my two sons. Grant that they may sit, one at your right and one at your left, when you are in your kingdom». Jesus said to the brothers, «You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I am about to drink?». They answered, «We can». Jesus replied, «You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right or at my left is not for me to grant. That will be for those for whom the Father ha