Thomas Gumbleton

The Peace Pulpit: As we celebrate Pentecost, I hope we can take to our heart this message that comes to us so clearly in the readings: that Jesus rejects violence and so must we.

The Peace Pulpit: If we listen to today's Gospel, we find something about the love of Jesus that I think is quite extraordinary and yet something that we really can try to imitate.

The Peace Pulpit: We must find the ways in our everyday life to love one another in our homes, our communities, to welcome the stranger, the refugee, to work to end the violence in our world, to bring the fullness of the message of Jesus.

The Peace Pulpit: We have to carry the message of love of the Good Shepherd. Listen to Jesus, take in his words, follow his example, and change the situation in our world.

The Peace Pulpit: It’s true for us in every aspect of our lives — our personal lives, our community life, our national life and our life among the nations of the world — we must restrain evil, take away sin. That’s the only way we will bring peace, forgiveness and love into our world. 

The Peace Pulpit: Maybe we're more like the person in the Gospel. "Yes I believe, but help my unbelief because it's a struggle." Sometimes we think that faith is a gift and once we have it, we'll never falter. Not true. Faith is a choice.

The Peace Pulpit: As we enter into these final two weeks of Lent, we must begin to try to deepen that awareness of how God loves us as we contemplate how Jesus goes through his sufferings and death.

The Peace Pulpit: God is always loving us. That's a truth that we need to try to let sink deeply into our awareness. We can't merit the love of God; it is a gift.

The Peace Pulpit: During this season of Lent, we might have a sense of how God is calling us to reform our lives in whatever way we need to, to come to God for healing and forgiveness knowing with great confidence that God is simply waiting to be gracious.

The Peace Pulpit: This is what we must try to do now during this season of Lent — listen deeply, intently to the Word of God. Isn't it true we need this message more than ever because there is so much violence, such a spirit of hatred in our world.

The Peace Pulpit: Jesus challenges us today to reject every other concern, most of all to reject power and violence in order to grow in the one thing that is most important: to grow in love.

The Peace Pulpit: We have the season of Lent so that we can undergo every year a new conversion to the way of Jesus.

The Peace Pulpit: If we accepted what Jesus says and bring it into our own life, transform ourselves, our attitudes, our thinking, our ways of acting, we could end violence. Certainly, the violence in our country is truly extraordinary. 

The Peace Pulpit: Have we ever thought about the moment when God called me, each of us? Maybe we don't think of it that way, but it goes back to our baptism.

The Peace Pulpit: What is God's main message and one that we need especially to hear in our time? It's a message about God is love; where there is love, there is God.

The Peace Pulpit: As we make this final preparation then for the celebration of the birth of Jesus, we should listen carefully to how Jesus wants us to respond. And I think the lessons today are very clear. 

The Peace Pulpit: As we try to discover God within our midst, in our hearts, in the depths of our being, as Christmas approaches, we will do it if we begin to follow more closely the way Jesus teaches us, not just by his words but by his example. 

The Peace Pulpit: When we are confirmed, we declare we're ready to be witnesses to the good news of Jesus, which is what? To proclaim the reign of God. The first thing he did when he started his public life, he announced, "The reign of God is at hand. Change your lives."

The Peace Pulpit: There is an end of time, an end of history and we need to prepare for it as our Gospel lesson tells us. How do we do that? We do it by trying to listen deeply every week to what Jesus teaches us so that gradually, we absorb his message.

The Peace Pulpit: We in the church today are suffering, as everyone knows, a severe crisis. Part of the problem is the wealth of the church and the wealth of religious leaders.