When I was in second grade, my prized possession was a metal Star Wars-themed lunch box. After school one day, another student ripped it from my hands. I helplessly watched in horror as my classmate threw it to the ground and violently stomped it into an unrecognizable heap of junk. I came home covered in tears of shame and rage. After a few months, I never thought about it again … until I was almost thirty years old and on a retreat to prepare for ordination to the priesthood.

I think even the most devout, the most pious Catholic reading this meditation could summon to mind, if asked, one or even two examples of Catholic teaching for which they have desperately looked for a loophole.

Don’t worry, I won’t make you share with the group. But bring it to your mind now: the doctrine you once resented, or perhaps still do. The commandment you don’t fully understand, the one you bristle against. The rule you find the hardest to follow. The belief you hate explaining to your friends. If it disappeared from scripture or dropped out of the catechism, would your life really be easier? Would you be happier?

I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but I’ve never been called “Satan,” at least not to my face.

It seems to me the worst name you could call a person, and today we hear it straight from the lips of Jesus. It’s just one of the many small reminders strewn throughout Scripture that Jesus preaches meekness, but he is not mild — not when mildness serves no purpose, anyway.

And here, when Peter is trying to deter Jesus from making the right choice, mildness serves no purpose at all.

I am Fr. Jude Thaddeus (JT) Osunkwo, a missionary priest with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston since 2010. I am visiting St. Mary’s Parish this weekend to speak at all Masses about the work of the Church in my home Diocese of Orlu in Nigeria.

Diocese of Orlu is quite a young Diocese of 43 years having been created on Nov. 29, 1980. Most of the parishes are in rural communities. The Diocese is blessed with a committed clergy and an enthusiastic laity. Being a young and rural diocese, it is faced with many challenges as would be expected. In addition to her main task of evangelization, the Diocese struggles with providing social amenities (education, health, clean water, etc.) to the predominantly poor rural communities. In Nigeria, government presence is scarce in the countryside. This puts the local church in the position to become "all things to all men and women."

Everyday Stewardship

The Jubilee Year of Mercy is now in the history books and looking back I wonder if I have been changed at all by the observance. Certainly the focus on mercy wasn't all about God's mercy toward me? Yes, I focused on my sin and the need for God's forgiveness and grace, but hopefully that changed how I live my life and how I offer mercy to others.

O Great St. Rocco, deliver us, we beseech you, from contagious diseases, and the contagion of sin. Obtain, for us, a purity of heart which will assist us to make good use of health, and to bear sufferings with patience. Teach us to follow your example in the practice of penance and charity, so that we may, one day enjoy the happiness of being with Christ, Our Savior, in Heaven. Amen.

We’ve all had moments when we seem to get a glimpse of Heaven.

For me, they come with the sacraments: in the pew following my First Communion, kneeling before the bishop as he sealed my forehead with oil at my Confirmation, standing opposite my husband on our wedding day, cradling my newborns as the priest poured holy water over their little foreheads, claiming them for Christ. Moments when the veil between this world and the one to come is pulled away, and our hearts cry out: “Lord, it is good we are here.”