Reflections of a Simple Priest

It was only a few short weeks ago when we had the massive student move-in days happen here on campus.  It's hard to imagine the volume of people moving the volume of furniture, books, computers, and all sorts of crates of their belongings into town in, for the most part, the span of a single day.  I remember as I talked to one student who had asked her friends to move her rather large bookcase around in her apartment.  This one tiny little girl asking two very large guys if they could move it for her.  One of the boys looked at her…and simply said…So what's in it for me?  The girl thought for a minute until she finally said….umm, I can make brownies…and so the bookcase was moved. I think a lot of times in our own lives we seem to ask ourselves that question any time we decide to act.  If we're doing what we want to do, well, great.  If we're going to work…of course, ultimately we're working to get a paycheck, and feed our family.  If we're...

As the Gospel begins today, we hear about how our Lord is eating with sinners and tax collectors. Now I must admit that as much as I'd love to follow in the footsteps of our Lord, it seems like there must not be very many sinners and tax collectors in state college, because I never seem to get invited out to dinner…. But back to the Gospel, we've heard today's Gospel so many times….The story of the prodigal son is probably one of our favorite stories. So many of us can relate to the story. There are so many in our church who have had incredible conversion stories and returned to the Church. Yet, at the same time, we do always seem to talk about the story as if we were the boy who squandered his inheritance. Certainly, that's one very good way to look at the story, but I'd invite us today to look at it just a little differently. For a while now, Our Lord has been preaching the gospel to the poor, healing the sick, and the people are starting to really follow hi...