Fr. Charles Bouchard, OP

Father Charlie reflects on the Scripture readings for Monday, August 18th (20th week in ordinary time), examining the challenging theme of human nature's tendency toward repeated sin. Drawing from the Book of Judges, where the Israelites repeatedly fell into idolatry despite divine guidance through judges, and the Gospel story of the rich young man who approached Jesus seeking salvation, Father Charlie explores how we all struggle with habitual sins that seem impossible to overcome. While acknowledging the disappointing cycle of confession and repeated failure that many experience, he offers hope through the Gospel's message that true transformation comes not just from following commandments, but from a genuine conversion of heart that allows God's grace to gradually replace our patterns of sin with acts of charity, love, and trust in God.

Jesus tells his disciples that they need to be childlike to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Children can be truthful (sometimes embarrassingly so), affectionate, and humble, but they can also be the opposite of these things. We are to imitate them in their good qualities, not their bad ones.

Join Fr. Charlie Bouchard, OP in this Know Before You Go video for the Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time. In his Letter to the Colossians, Paul reminds us that as Christians, we have all put on a new self, which brings with it a new and more exalted identity. We need to live up to this new identity, lest we be hypocrites... or, as Qoheleth reminds us in the first reading, lest it be "vanity of vanities."

Join Fr. Charlie Bouchard, OP in this Know Before You Go video for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. In the first reading, Abraham unknowingly offers hospitality to angels. In the Gospel, Jesus' friend Mary sits at his feet listening to his teaching, leaving her sister Martha to do the work of hospitality. Fr. Charlie uses this scene to break open the Christian understanding of the relationship between contemplation and action, showing how be all need to do both and to let each one inform the other. He also puts forth that contemplation is like offering hospitality to God within your own heart.

Today we hear the Parable of the Good Samaritan, in which Jesus challenges his followers to be compassionate towards those in need, because those in need are our neighbors. Today, in our interconnected world, this parable has implications about how Christians should think about International Policy and immigration laws and enforcement.

Today we are given another chapter of the story of Joseph and his brothers, where they ask for forgiveness and forgive one another. Families are messy, and they are a good place to learn about forgiveness.