Today’s Gospel teaches us a basic truth: God’s love is for all people. Jesus shows that we can’t limit God’s love, mercy and forgiveness to those who think like us, look like us and act like us.

Flying back to New York from Rome in late June to begin my service as a summer priest at Immaculate Heart of Mary, Windsor Terrace, I had the opportunity to watch some films that I had wanted to watch and had always put off viewing.

Not a day goes by in my life when I do not thank God for the solid foundation that my years at Cathedral Prep Seminary, Elmhurst, gave me.

Every summer my parents would take my sister and I and a few of our friends on an excursion to Coney Island.

As a college seminarian, I was living at Cathedral Seminary Residence in Douglaston and attending St. John’s University in Jamaica.

God has blessed me with many talents and strengths throughout my life. But one of the things that I am not very good at is gardening, particularly planting. Every plant that I seem to have ends up dying.

On Sunday, June 16, 1996, I received the sacrament of confirmation at my home parish of Queen of All Saints in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn.

At its heart, today’s feast is primarily about communion. Moses desired it, and so he prays, reflecting every person’s inherent desire for God. Nothing can take His place, and so Moses humbly implores Him, “do come along in our company” (Ex. 34:9).