There are passages of Scripture that comfort us, and there are passages that unsettle us. And sometimes, if we are willing to stay with them long enough, the unsettling passages may have more to teach us. Today’s Gospel is one of those passages. It begins with Jesus speaking about purity. The religious controversy of the […]

There is no doubt about it. Our Gospel reading for today is a challenging one. It is the only story we have in Mark of Jesus denying healing to someone who asks for it. And not only does he at first deny the healing of the Syrophoenician’s daughter, a child, he does it so rudely […]