LUCEM FERRE

EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – A | AUGUST 02, 2026 Isaiah 55:1-3 • Psalm 145:8-9, 15-16, 17-18 • Romans 8:35, 37-39 • Matthew 14:13-21   “BRING WHAT YOU HAVE”: FINDING ABUNDANCE IN GOD’S GENEROUS LOVE Often, we attempt to fill a deep, spiritual void with material possessions. However, no matter how much we consume, we still feel just as empty an hour later.  Thousands of years ago, the Prophet Isaiah saw this exact human tendency and asked a question that echoes right down into our 21st-century lives: “Why spend your money for what is not bread, your wages for what fails to satisfy?” (Isaiah 55:2) Today’s scriptures invite us to step away from the spiritual junk food of the world and sit down at the table of a God who satisfies the deepest longings of our hearts, freely, abundantly, and without cost. In today’s Gospel from Matthew, we witness a tender human moment. Jesus has just received devastating news: his cousin and friend, John the Baptist, has bee...

SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – A | JULY 26, 2026 1 Kings 3:5, 7–12 • Psalm 119 • Romans 8:28–30 • Matthew 13:44-52 FINDING WHAT TRULY MATTERS: THE TREASURE OF AN UNDERSTANDING HEART A story is told of a man who was helping his elderly mother move out of the family home where she had lived for over fifty years. As they cleared out the attic, they opened box after box of accumulated items, including old kitchen gadgets, souvenir keychains, stacks upon stacks of yellowed magazines, and broken appliances saved “just in case.” As the afternoon wore on, the man uncovered a small, dusty wooden box tucked away in the far corner under the eaves. When he opened it, he found his late father’s handwritten journals from his early married years, along with a stack of love letters written during his time overseas in the military. In that moments-long pause, surrounded by fifty years of physical clutter, everything else in the attic became completely irrelevant. The broken radios, the...

« LA MESSE, QU'EST-CE QUE C'EST ?  LA COMPRENDRE POUR MIEUX Y PARTICIPER » Aujourd'hui, nous allons aborder une question fondamentale pour notre vie chrétienne : Qu’est-ce que la Messe ?  Si nous sommes honnêtes, nous avons tous déjà ressenti de l'ennui, de la distraction ou l'impression de répéter des gestes machinalement le dimanche matin. Pourquoi ? Souvent parce que nous ne comprenons pas ce qui s'y passe réellement . La liturgie de l'Église est riche de symboles, de paroles et de gestes qui ont tous un sens profond. Le concile Vatican II nous invite à une « participation active, consciente et fructueuse » ( actuosa participatio ). L'objectif de notre rencontre aujourd'hui est simple : décoder la Messe pour que notre présence ne soit plus passive, mais devienne une véritable rencontre d'amour avec Dieu. PARTIE 1 : QU'EST-CE QUE LA MESSE ? (LE SENS PROFOND) Avant de regarder comment elle se déroule, comprenons ce qu'elle est ...

SIXTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – A | JULY 19, 2026 Wisdom 12:13, 16–19 • Psalm 86 • Romans 8:26–27 • Matthew 13:24–43   PATIENCE IN THE FIELD OF GRACE The messy coexistence of good and evil, right alongside each other, in our world, in our communities, and even within our own hearts. This can be, for all of us here, a kind of frustration. And it’s that human experience; Jesus meets us in today’s Gospel. In the Parable of the Weeds and the Wheat, the servants are just like many of us. They see the weeds, which in the ancient world were likely darnel , a weed that resembles wheat in its early stages, and their immediate human reaction is: “Do you want us to go and pull them up?” They want quick, decisive, surgical justice. Cut out the bad stuff. Rid the world of the wicked. Clean up the mess. But the Master says, “No, if you pull up the weeds, you might uproot the wheat with them. Let them grow together until harvest.” This is one of the most challenging teachings o...

                              FIFTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – A | JULY 12, 2026 Isaiah 55:10-11| Psalm 65 | Romans 8:18-23 | Matthew 13:1-23 THE SEEDS OF HOPE IN A RESTLESS WORLD There may be a human experience we've all had: the experience of waiting for something to grow, not just in a garden, but in our own lives. Perhaps it was a skill we were trying to master, a relationship we were trying to heal, or a deep prayer we were offering for a loved one. We plant the intention, we water it with our time and our tears, and yet, for a long time, nothing seems to happen. We look at the dry, hard ground of our circumstances and wonder if anything will ever break through. In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the familiar parable of the Sower . It is a story about the messy reality of the human heart. Jesus is remarkably honest about the obstacles: the path, the rocky ground, the thorns. He acknowledges that t...

  FOURTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – A | JULY 05, 2026 Zechariah 9:9-10 | Psalm 145:1-2, 8-9, 10-11, 13-14 | Romans 8:9, 11-13 | Matthew 11:25-30 THE EASY YOKE OF A GENTLE KING   “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” But, before that, Jesus begins His prayer in today’s Gospel with a strange note of thanksgiving: “I give praise to you, Father... for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to the childlike.”  In our world, we highly value the “wise and learned.” We respect credentials, expertise, and self-sufficiency. We are conditioned to believe that if we just analyze our problems long enough, read enough self-help books, or work hard enough, we can fix our lives. But Jesus warns us that this hyper-intellectual, self-reliant approach can actually blind us to the simplicity of God’s grace. To be “childlike” does not mean being childish or naive . Rather, it is a des...