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SHEMA YISRAEL ADONAI ELOHEINU ADONAI ECHAD [ U'SHEMO ECHAD ] V'AHAVTA ET HASHEM ELOHEICHA B'CHOL LEVAVCHA U'VCHOL NAFSHECHA U'VCHOL MEODECHA [YAIDA DAI YADA DAI YAIDADAI . . .] Hear, O Israel: The  Lord  is our God, the  Lord  alone. You shall love the  Lord  your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.  Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart (Deuteronomy 6:4-6). Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) Gospel  Mark 12:28b-34 ( New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition)      One of the scribes came near and asked Jesus, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’  Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one;  you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and

(photo courtesy of http://www.vosizneias.com) It's a measure of my attachment to this six-and-a-half-hour-long audiobook that would listen to it in my driveway when coming home from my commute, and I felt sad this morning when I finished listening it on my drive to my high-school teaching job. This book is for anyone interested in issues of faith, of history and culture and on a friendship that shapes the life of the current Holy Father. Indeed, I found echoes of one of my friendships in theirs. Keep Reading...

    By Allison Salerno   Yesterday morning my family attended the bar mitvah of a neighborhood boy we have known since he was a baby. I never had attended a Conservative Jewish Shabbat morning service, much less a bar mitvah. It was exquisite, reverent and beautiful. (The sanctuary is pictured above) I wiped tears from my eyes as I considered the overwhelming faith and courage of Jews through the centuries of persecution that enabled this boy to encounter this moment. I also meditated on the links between my Catholic faith and Judaism as I listened to the prayers of the worshipers. As the Catechism teaches us: When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People, "the first to hear the Word of God."  I always have been taught that Judaism is the root of the tree of our faith. And that without that root, our faith would not have flowered. For the most part, this insight has remai