Once I gave my three-year-old niece a certain toy for Christmas. When she opened it, she was happy. Shortly thereafter her five-year old sister opened another present from me: the same toy, along with some play jewelry. The three-year-old cried out: “That’s not fair! Why’d she get the jewelry, too?!”

When I was in second grade, my prized possession was a metal Star Wars-themed lunch box. After school one day, another student ripped it from my hands. I helplessly watched in horror as my classmate threw it to the ground and violently stomped it into an unrecognizable heap of junk. I came home covered in tears of shame and rage. After a few months, I never thought about it again … until I was almost thirty years old and on a retreat to prepare for ordination to the priesthood.

What are you supposed to do about the bad behavior of the people around you? You know who I’m talking about. That family member, friend, coworker, or acquaintance who is quite immoral. On this front there are two lively options in our culture: bash the person to others (probably online) or pretend everything’s fine. The former damages the person. The latter ignores reality. What to do?

Isn’t it easy to relate to Peter? One moment Jesus announces Peter’s deep communion with God the Father. The very next, when he rejects the logic of Jesus’ suffering and death, Jesus calls Peter Satan. We Christians shouldn’t be too shocked when we experience both spiritual highs and lows, when we perceive breathtaking contradictions in our hearts.

Isn’t it a bit weird that Catholics call the Pope “papa,” father? This Sunday provides us with essential Scriptural background on the papacy, the petrine office. Jesus gives Peter the “keys to the kingdom of heaven,” after witnessing to the special grace Peter has to know Jesus’ true identity. Many have pointed out that the “keys” refer back to the figure of Eliakim, King David’s prime minister. True enough. But notice this is not mere authority or power. It’s a family relationship. The Lord says to Eliakim, “He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem” (Isaiah 22:21). David’s prime minister was a spiritual father to the family of Israel. Peter, and his successors, will be spiritual fathers in the family of the Church.

The suffering of a child symbolizes uniquely terrible evil as well as despair about the future. This week’s Gospel gives a “limit” case in which Jesus encounters this evil in the form of a mother with a suffering daughter. What he does is stunning and massively helpful for us if we bravely ponder the details.

The Canaanite woman comes to Jesus and begs his mercy. “My daughter is tormented by a demon,” she declares to him. Shockingly, he responds first with silence, then with a dismissive comment, and only then finally accedes to her third request. Is this simply a lesson in perseverance in our petitions to God, who is like a genie in a bottle? Does that justify the humiliation and pain this woman suffers? Is the Lord cruel?

A man at my parish was struggling to overcome a habitual sin. He said to me, “Father, I know the chance that I will commit sin again is really high. Why should I keep confessing my sins? Isn’t that dishonest?” Anyone who has felt the tyrannical power of sin — and who hasn’t? — has pondered this kind of question.

What is Christianity finally about? These days if you ask almost anyone who doesn’t know the Bible you’ll probably hear an answer like this: “Being a good person” or “following the golden rule.” No offense to the golden rule, but our faith is simply much stronger than that. This week’s feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord is a luminous example of this. Jesus becomes radiantly and overwhelmingly beautiful. The glory of God literally shines forth from his body and even his clothes. Here we see that Christianity is not mainly a moral system, but a relationship with God in Christ, one that finally makes human beings gloriously beautiful.

Our culture seems more polarized and divided than ever. Into this wounded situation, our Catholic faith has a healing remedy to offer: the gift of wisdom. When the Lord offers to give King Solomon anything the monarch desires, he requests “an understanding heart” (1 Kings 3:9). In his polarized situation, the King doesn’t ask for power to defeat his enemies. He asks for a wise and understanding heart to judge right from wrong. This wisdom is elevated and fulfilled in Jesus who teaches us to bring forth “both the new and the old” (Matthew 13:52).

Life, like the church, is often burdened with evil, smallness, and impurities. The Lord’s parables give us a hope-filled perspective on all three.

Evil: in Jesus’ parable about the good farmer whose enemy plants weeds at night, Jesus tells us that God is not the cause of evil but permits evil to exist with good out of his patient love. He will finally deal with it, but his love lets things stay messy for a time.

It’s not uncommon to hear people complain that we Catholics often fail in communicating our faith. Fair enough. We can and should improve there. But it’s interesting to notice that Jesus himself was implicitly accused by his disciples of a similar failure. This week in Matthew’s gospel they are perplexed that he speaks to the crowds in ambiguous parables. The Lord’s riddles leave many people more confused than before. He responds by pointing out that his parables have an intentional dual purpose: to hide (for some) and to reveal (for others) his Gospel: “Because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted” (Matthew 13:11). Is Jesus being unnecessarily difficult, obscurantist, or, worse, elitist?

Do you ever feel restless? I certainly do. Daily tasks and challenges, but also the more basic demand of simply existing — sooner or later, this can all feel crushing and tire us out.

Which is why Jesus’ words are such stunningly good news: “Come to me all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). How vastly weird that this man speaks as though he is capable of giving us the deep repose we desire. Is his claim the height of absurd grandiosity? No, because next he immediately proclaims that he is “meek and humble of heart.”

As a boy my favorite board game was “Chutes and Ladders.” The players roll dice to move from the start to the finish, from the bottom of the board to the top. If you land on a chute, you slide back and down. It was a bummer. Land on a ladder, and you jump well up the board and near the goal. It was a thrill to find a ladder and draw closer to the goal. That’s life, isn’t it? At every moment, we’re either moving closer or farther from the goal of our lives.