What do you call brothers who are born on the same day? Twins, of course. That is what we celebrate today in the inestimable saints, Peter and Paul. Wait: twins? Yes. The early Church believed that Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome on the same day. Since the day of martyrdom is celebrated as a saints’ birth into eternal life, the result is striking: Peter and Paul are twins in God’s family, the Church.

I am amazed at how my four siblings teach their many kids in age-appropriate ways. For example, now that my nephew Brandon is 24 years of age, they give him insights and freedoms that would have been positively confounding or even dangerous when he was a toddler. Imagine if they had taught him at age four how to drive a car, use a credit card online, or handle power tools. But eventually, they did, and he is a high functioning young man, I’m proud to say. They are good teachers.

When I was a seminarian almost 20 years ago, a bank vice president taught us etiquette classes. She said, “Gentlemen, please make sure your breath isn’t bad. Take some breath mints before you hear confessions, okay?” We nervously laughed because the proximity that makes breath noticeable (whether pleasant or not) can be a bit awkward.

When Jesus breathes on his Apostles (John 20:22), he must have been within inches of at least some of them.

The famous 20th century St. Padre Pio said once that he would wait outside the gates of heaven until the people in his life had entered. I’m not sure that I, or frankly many people I know, would say that and mean it. Yet that is precisely the kind of attitude we see in Jesus as he prays for us in the Gospel today. Having celebrated the Ascension of the Lord just a few days ago, we now hear the Son of God at the Last Supper pray to his Father “that they may be brought to perfection as one” (John 17:23). What does this mean for us?

Jonathan Haidt’s 2024 book entitled “The Anxious Generation” argues that today’s kids are marked by significant increases in anxiety, as the title suggests. Smartphones, social media, economic uncertainty, the chaos of a global pandemic, fear regarding climate change, and the so-called “meaning crisis” all contribute to strikingly high levels of anxiety in young people today. I’m a bit older than this generation, but I feel it, too. The world can be too much to handle.

I’ve always found it amazing that Jesus never says to his disciples the straightforward and bumper stickery words “I love you” or “I will always love you” (a la Dolly Parton’s song). Why doesn’t Jesus say, “I love you”?

Well, actually he does, but in particular ways. He says, “As the Father loves me, so I love you” (John 15:9) thereby rooting his love for us in the space of the Holy Trinity. This week he commands, “Love another as I have loved you” (John 13:34). He presents his love for us as a completed action which continues into the present moment.

A few years back, I felt as if I couldn’t hear God’s voice the way I used to. The words in the Bible seemed like cold ink on a page. Prayer felt like sitting anxiously in a lonely room. I was worried — how could I, a priest, preach or help others if I couldn’t hear God’s voice? It went on for months.

Then a friend encouraged me to go on a retreat and spend as much time as possible in silence. After a day or two of quiet prayer, I noticed gentle but clear thoughts of repentance in two specific areas of my life.

I eat breakfast. If I don’t have something substantial, I’m fading by mid-morning. Breakfast is my key meal because it sets up my physical well-being for the rest of the day.

Spiritually speaking, we need sustenance to get us going. This is true for the Apostles in this Sunday’s remarkable Gospel reading. The risen Jesus makes His third appearance to them in the early morning light and calls, “Come, have breakfast” (John 21:12).

Maybe I’m weird, but I like spending time in doctor’s offices, confession lines in churches, auto repair shops, prison cells, and support groups of various kinds. It’s refreshing to be with people who humbly admit something is wrong and forthrightly set out on a path toward a solution. When we ignore what is off kilter, we become alone and fragile. In places where people are honest and hopeful about brokenness, sturdy if subtle fellowship usually ensues.

I love movies about exorcisms. Apparently, so do many others. The 2023 movie Nefarious features a possibly possessed inmate on death row. Critics were not impressed, but audiences scored it at 97% on the website Rotten Tomatoes. Most people have an appreciation for the demonic realm, even if cultural elites are generally embarrassed about it. As is standard in exorcism movies, the afflicted person (in this case, a man named Edward Brady) thinks and acts like multiple persons. He is someone besides himself. We know what that is like. We feel fake sometimes, not ourselves.

We start telling lies around the age of three, the experts tell us. It’s understandable. Lying is a god-like power. Whatever I want, I need only say it, and the world rearranges itself accordingly. It’s amazing at first. But soon reality snaps back and I’m faced with a dilemma. If I remain committed to my lie I start to fracture into pieces. My words and reality drift apart, and I find myself lost in a lonely world of further falsehoods and fear of being found out.

In my work as a freelance writer, I have a regular column in the archdiocesan paper writing profiles of ordinary people in the local church. Laity, religious, and clergy alike — I hound them all to give me an interview, and when I do, the answer is almost always this: “You don’t want to talk to me. There’s nothing special about me.”

How strange it is to think that if not for Herod’s directions, the magi would not have known where to find Jesus. They were not Jews, they knew nothing of the old prophecies. It was Herod who convened the scholars. It was Herod who pointed the way — for ulterior motives, certainly, but nonetheless, this is the part he played. It was Herod who made the Epiphany possible.