AIR
“There came a sound like the rush of a violent wind…”(Acts 2) and He breathed on them and said to them “Receive the Holy Spirit…’”
Air and Life
For the ancients there were four elements, not the ninety plus that science now teaches.
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Faith and Knowledge
Knowledge, science, is the application of human intelligence to the empirical world. Math is just another word for intelligence. To believe in Creation is to believe that our intelligence is God-given, that there can be no conflict between Science and Creation. Science describes Creation in all its complexity. Difference is essential to the world. Otherwise, we would all be a pre-Big Bang lump. Our knowledge of our own little piece of the world …
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Law Enforcement
There are many levels of interpretation for today’s readings. The first reading is from Leviticus, chapter 13 verses 1 and 2, then 45-46. The Book of Leviticus is part of the first 5 books of what used to be called the “Old Testament” (as opposed to the New Covenant created by Jesus at the last Supper). Those first five books were cobbled together in Babylon by all the different leaders of the 12 tribes …
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On Consulting the Faithful
In his “Apologia Pro Vita Sua” John Henry (Cardinal) Newman explained that he converted to Catholicism because he recognized that the Catholic Church was the closest to that of St. Athanasius. I was inspired by Newman’s sentiment and chose “The Logos in the Theology of Athanasius” to be the topic of my PhD dissertation. Life got in the way and I never completed it.
However, I also learned that …
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THE LORD’S VINEYARDToday’s reading from Isaiah (5.1-7) presents a very elaborate description -a metaphor- of a vineyard. Understanding metaphors involves interpretation. The readings in our liturgy always include three segments. There is immense complexity in the relationships among them and understanding requires an ability to interpret how they illustrate one another as well as a grasp of context. In the gospel Jesus begin his parable by almost quoting Isaiah: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a …
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My friend, Byron, was a ‘White Father’ missionary to Africa in one of his lives. He told me of one remote tribe there, who had no problem with the movement of the sun across the sky. How did the sun get back east to rise again? Why, it went back the same way across the sky, but “we can’t see it because it is dark at night.” Scientists today also noticed it is dark at night, so they explain …
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When Jesus replied to a religious student asking, “Who is my neighbor?” the story of the Good Samaritan was given to all of us. In today’s gospel from John, another story about a Samaritan is told. What do these stories tell us about our faith and how does our faith guide us?
A letter from Archbishop Valery Vienneau back in December of 2014 states, “the dwindling number of practicing Catholics forces us to reconsider our priorities …
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My brother-in-law prefers to celebrate his “birthday” in AA to celebrating his traditional birthday. His last one was his 35th. Most of us just celebrate one birthday. Shortly before that day our mother knew what was about to happen when her water broke. That is the “water” that is involved in the ceremony of Baptism. In my childhood catechism some 70 years ago, the element of water was for cleansing Original Sin and restoring an individual relationship with God. …
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Today is the last Sunday of the Liturgical Year. ‘Today’ is also the last day of the history of the world. On this last day, we celebrate the mystery of Christ, the King of the Universe, ‘who will come to judge the living and the dead.’
Trevor Droesbeck’s All Saints Day reflection on the ‘Love of Thousands’ gave us a glimpse into the immense complexity of God’s Creation. The very recent discovery of the Genome gives further understanding …
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Jesus spoke in parables with amazing insights into human behaviour; many of them so convincing that they have become clichés of our language. One short parable was about a merchant who collected pearls and finally found the perfect one. He was so invested in his search that he sold everything else he had in order to buy it. When a young rich man asked Jesus for his advice, Jesus drew on his own parable and suggested the young man …
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