All Episodes
The Five Fingers
This week, Fr. Paul underscores the centrality of shepherd life over city life in the Book of Exodus, specifically in its presentation of the Tent of Meeting. He also ...
Glorify the Canaanites so That You May Live Long in the Land
After expending significant effort to construct a genealogy—almost from scratch, only now, as he approaches his knockout punch, "Son of Man (ben adam), Son of God,” Lu...
People Do Not Change
This week, Fr. Paul resumes his discussion of Exodus, noting that the story was written to test God’s people, taking their failure into consideration from the very beg...
Arise, O God, Judge the Earth
Thus far in Luke’s genealogy, the writer has emphasized two critical points within the broader storyline of the New Testament. First, after paralleling Matthew’s dismi...
A Process of Judgment
This week, Fr. Paul continues his exegesis of Ezekiel as a background for his comprehensive study of Exodus, taking time to explain that the parabolic admonition of Je...
No Security Blankets
When a person experiences cognitive dissonance, that is, when they find themselves in a situation where exposure to conflicting ideas and information becomes too stres...
I Gave Them Statutes That Were Not Good
In today’s program, Fr. Paul reads from the text of Ezekiel to illustrate how hearers of the Bible misconstrue the Book of Exodus. (Episode 277)
Heritage is Not Ancestral
As in the story of Genesis, for each generation of Luke’s genealogy, the functional names outline the literary framework of a recurring biblical dilemma: without God’s...
Set Free From You
This week, Fr. Paul explains that rest is assigned by God on the Sabbath and in the Sabbatical and Jubilee years, not for the sake of man but for the benefit of the ad...
Understanding Irrelevance
When we set out to start a business, a project, a book, or an endeavor of any kind, most of us begin by asking ourselves, who is my audience, and how can I make my wor...
For I Am Compassionate
This week Fr. Paul explains that those who are called sons and daughters of God — the insiders, so to speak — are special. Yes, you heard me correctly. You are specia...
A Mental Vacancy
For years on this program, in homilies and personal discussions with parishioners, family, and friends — I have explained that there is no such thing as progress. That...
First and Foremost
This week Fr. Paul notes that the subject of the biblical text is determined by the story’s content and not by the sensibilities of those hearing the story. In Genesi...
I Believe in One God
According to the rule of the Lukan genealogy, the recent coronation of the English king was uncanny in its egregious assault on the biblical proclamation of the Resurr...
You May Not Sin Toward the Ox or the Ass
This week Fr. Paul highlights examples from the biblical text that deal with humans and animals on the same level, noting that animals are also called to repentance. (...
Cowardice
If you are fortunate to live under the pressure of the Gospel, sooner or later, your life will be reduced to a showdown with the Scriptural God. You will have the oppo...
God is the Only Melech
This week, Fr. Paul explains that in the Bible, God is the only King and the owner of his children, not his children the owners one of another. (Episode 272)
Sin is Crouching at the Door
Nothing is more painful than watching young parents explain their intention to raise their children differently than their parents or observing young mothers hovering ...