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Jan 25, 2025 | 
outreach.faith | James Martin
Views James Martin, S.J. / January 25, 2025Print this: This essay first appeared in our weekly Scripture reflection newsletter on January 25, 2025. In today’s Gospel, in a story recounted in all the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus stands in the synagogue in Nazareth, before all those who know him, and proclaims his identity.
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Jan 23, 2025 | 
outreach.faith | James Martin
Views James Martin, S.J. / January 23, 2025Print this: Outreach is delighted to announce the appointment of four gifted Jesuits to serve on our first Jesuit Board of Advisors.
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Jan 18, 2025 | 
outreach.faith | James Martin
Views James Martin, S.J. / January 18, 2025Print this: This essay first appeared in our weekly Scripture reflection newsletter on January 18, 2025. There is so much in today’s beautiful Gospel passage that we might focus on. Like the superabundance of wine made by Jesus, there is a superabundance of themes in the story of the Wedding Feast of Cana.
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Jan 11, 2025 | 
outreach.faith | James Martin
This essay first appeared in our weekly Scripture reflection newsletter on January 10, 2025. A few years ago, on an eight-day retreat at Linwood Spiritual Retreat Center in Rhinebeck, N.Y., a beautiful spot situated on a picturesque bend in the Hudson River, I had a surprising experience. One evening, the retreat directors gathered the retreatants for a prayer service focused on healing, which included a practice that was novel for me.
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Jan 4, 2025 | 
outreach.faith | James Martin
Views James Martin, S.J. / January 4, 2025Print this: This essay first appeared in our weekly Scripture reflection newsletter on January 4, 2025. It wasn’t until after I entered the Jesuit novitiate that I learned about the Christmas custom of placing the figures of the three Wise Men far from the crèche, or manger scene, until the Solemnity of the Epiphany.
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Dec 28, 2024 | 
outreach.faith | James Martin
We are smack dab in the middle of the holiday season, with most of us recovering from Christmas and preparing for the New Year’s celebrations. That means that many of us are either spending, have spent or will be spending time with members of our families. Most of us have the same reactions during the holidays: Why is my family so maddening? Why is this person so difficult? Why does this person always make me feel like I’m a child? Why can’t these two people just get along and stop sniping?
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Dec 24, 2024 | 
outreach.faith | James Martin
Every Christmas for the last few years, I’ve enjoyed posting online one of my favorite contemporary works of art, “José y Maria,” by Everett Patterson. It is a modern retelling of the Nativity story, featuring a young man and woman looking for lodgings in our time. The artist has filled his image with creative nods to the original Nativity story. Maria, clearly pregnant, wears a sweatshirt from “Nazareth High School.” while sitting on a children’s donkey ride.
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Dec 21, 2024 | 
outreach.faith | James Martin
A few years ago, I made my first pilgrimage to the Holy Land, as part of research for a book that eventually became Jesus: A Pilgrimage. And the person who most encouraged me to go, despite my protestations that it seemed a long way to travel for some research, was Drew Christiansen, S.J., then the editor in chief of America magazine and an expert in Jewish-Christian relations.
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Dec 14, 2024 | 
outreach.faith | James Martin
This essay first appeared in our weekly Scripture reflection newsletter on December 7, 2024. “Rejoice always!” says St. Paul, a quote echoed in the Entrance Antiphon, which gives today its beautiful name: Gaudete, or Rejoice, Sunday. Why rejoice at this point in Advent? Mainly because the readings move from “The Lord is coming” to “The Lord is near.” St. Paul was writing to the people in Philippi around AD 50 or 60, about 20 or 30 years after the public ministry of Jesus.
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Dec 7, 2024 | 
outreach.faith | James Martin
Views James Martin, S.J. / December 7, 2024Print this: This essay first appeared in our weekly Scripture reflection newsletter on December 7, 2024. Theologians often talk about the “scandal of particularity,” the fact that God became incarnate during a particular time and in a particular place, and for that matter as a particular figure: Jesus of Nazareth.
