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As I see it, the problem with sin is not so much the sin itself, but it’s the remembering and identifying with the sin. That’s the problem. What does it mean to say Jesus is the sinless one? I think it means he never identifies with sin. He never holds himself to past mistakes. And because he never holds himself to the past he has no need to hold others to their past sins.

We can learn from our past sins ...

The great rabbi was dying, and as we all know, deathbed wisdom is the best. So, his students lined up, single file, to receive his last words. The most brilliant student was by his bedside, the second most brilliant immediately behind him, and so on till the line ended at a pleasant enough fellow who was a good room and a half away. The most brilliant student leaned over to the slowly slipping rabbi and asked, “Rabbi, what is the ...

Church year, the liturgical year, begins pretty much the way it ends–with readings that are not easy to interpret or apply to our lives. They are quite philosophical and full of end-time imagery that leaves you thinking, “What could this possibly mean for us in this place and in this time?” Or you might say in mid-life, “Where is this whole thing going?” Or again, for those of you well past mid-life, “Is the whole world going to hell in ...

You may have grown up thinking of the Season of Advent as that four-week sprint just before Christmas.  Or, maybe you thought of it as the appetizer whose sole purpose was to get you to the main course—Christmas!  When you’re a kid waiting for presents (present company included), four weeks of Advent can seem like an eternity.  To say that the Season of Advent is four weeks long is liturgically correct albeit a bit short-sighted.  The Reign of God broke ...

We don’t use it in everyday language, but you may have heard the word “apocalypse”. Apocalypse is a Greek word meaning “revelation”— something is being revealed. So, the Book of Revelation, that second reading we heard from, is considered apocalyptic writing. The first reading, from the Book of Daniel, is also considered apocalyptic writing. Apocalyptic writing has to do with the end time (and here we are at the end of the liturgical year) and what will be revealed in ...

Naïve story #1: As a young child, and listening to music coming from a transistor radio, I thought there was a shrunken jazz band actually inside the radio. I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works, even though I still have no idea how transmitters or receivers work. Naïve story #2: As a young child, when the collection basket was being passed around during Mass, I thought all of the money collected—100% of it–was going to help the poor. A ...