Thomas Gumbleton

The Peace Pulpit: When we love our brother or sister, we are loving the God who brought them into being, who brings us into being. We can love the brother and sister we see, or we can choose not to.

The Peace Pulpit: God wants us to be one human family, brothers and sisters, all of us together helping one another. If we're going to be faithful to that message of Jesus, perhaps there are ways we have to change our thinking, change our actions in order to follow Jesus.

The Peace Pulpit: In the Gospel lesson, it seems so clear that Jesus, almost in a harsh way, says that there is no such thing as divorce and being remarried. Yet, if you look at how Jesus acted, it doesn't come across the same way.

The Peace Pulpit: Something that has made it so difficult for the church to reform is we haven't listened to people like yourselves, parish members, parents, relatives of these children.

The Peace Pulpit: People fleeing violence, economic oppression, and people trying to come into our country — do we welcome them or do we build walls and force them away?

The Peace Pulpit: Even in our darkest times, as we look at the church and find ourselves becoming discouraged at what is happening, we can have hope and confidence that God is still with us.

The Peace Pulpit: Being a doer of the word means taking all of the Scriptures, everything in these Scriptures very seriously. You make them part of your life — doers of the word, not hearers.

The Peace Pulpit: At this point in the church, Jesus looks upon us and weeps. What else could he do with the tragedies that have been exposed within our church, that have been going on for years?

The Peace Pulpit: There has to be very well developed programs so that when a person is ordained a priest — that person is basically healthy, psychosexually and psychologically. If we don't do those kinds of reforms, the situation will not get better.

The Peace Pulpit: When Paul says, "Be imitators of God," Paul is urging us to love as God loves, to love without demanding anything in return, to love as an absolute gift, to love without any strings attached.

The Peace Pulpit: All of us must take our vocation seriously that came to us with baptism to be priest, prophet, and king, to bring the healing message of Jesus into our lives and into our world.

The Peace Pulpit: Are we willing to hear prophets in our midst? The bishop of Rome, Pope Francis, is truly a prophet. He's speaking God's word about issues that are very important in our world.

The Peace Pulpit: The reign of God hasn't come in its fullness. There are poor and oppressed people in our country, in our world. There is violence. There is killing. There is war. We haven't done all that we can do to work with Jesus to make the reign of God happen.

The Peace Pulpit: Jesus is calling the whole of the human family to this because it's only through the whole of the human family that the work of Jesus can be carried out to drive away evil and to establish a community of love.

The Peace Pulpit: Leave here committed to doing what Jesus did: giving himself completely out of love for us that we might share God's light and love forever. "Do this in memory of me."

The Peace Pulpit: "If we really study the Scriptures, the Gospels, and study the life of Jesus, become aware of who he is, what he did, and what he said, we begin to understand more deeply that God is love." 

The Peace Pulpit: Restrain evil, bring about reconciliation and love so that every community in our country, every school in our country, children can feel safe and learn, and be at peace.

The Peace Pulpit: Jesus is giving to you the responsibility to spread the good news that he came to teach us — that the world could be transformed into the reign of God.

The Peace Pulpit: If we reflect on the experience of those first disciples and try to not only hear it, understand it, but to come every week prepared to experience that presence of Jesus in his word and in the Eucharist, we too will strengthen our faith and know that he is alive.

The Peace Pulpit: God has given all of us many gifts, but God expects us to share with others. Jesus gave the disciples the Holy Spirit to restrain evil and forgive sin, he's asking the same thing of us.