A fellow was stuck on his rooftop in a flood. He was praying to God for help. Soon a man in a rowboat came by and the fellow shouted to the man on the roof, “Jump in, I can save you.” The stranded fellow shouted back, “No, it’s OK, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me.” So, the rowboat went on. Then a motorboat came by. The fellow in the motorboat shouted, “Jump in, I can save you.” To this the stranded man ...
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Once again, there is so much food for thought in each of the Scripture readings we have today. To add more words to all the words you just heard, here is a story I received while on a Men’s Rite of Passage retreat, five years ago in California. It centers on the wisdom of a well-respected monk, Makarios the Great of Egypt.
A young man approached Makarios with the desire to become holy (and he only had a weekend to do ...
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“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful…it hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”
Today’s gospel from Luke follows Jesus as he begins his public ministry. His reputation as a teacher of great insight is spreading and he is “praised by everyone.” At first, when Jesus returns to Nazareth and teaches in the synagogue in which he grew up, “all ...
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Sometimes I wonder, and maybe you do too, whether all God’s great feats of power, all God’s great interventions into human history, that all of these marvellous deeds took place only in Biblical times and have, somehow, dried up for us here and now. If that is so, then maybe God’s past involvement in human affairs is solely for the purpose of giving us inspiration in the present. Or, more demoralizing still, somehow people of the past were more open, more deserving, ...
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In today’s Gospel, Jesus proclaims the “good news” to the poor. Jesus went to the synagogue in Nazareth, unrolled the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and found the place where it was written. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of ...
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I assume you have all heard the story of Jesus changing water into wine, and I also assume you have all heard many interpretations this story. Because the gospels cut in so many ways—symbolically, metaphorically, spiritually—there is no possibility of any of us saying, “That’s the real and the only interpretation.” The real interpretation is the one that makes sense for your life here and now. The real interpretation is the one whose outer truth resonates with some inner truth ...
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One of the things my mother told me repeatedly when I was growing up was, “just because I compliment your sister, does not mean I am criticizing you!” It is not surprising that a seven-year-old with a really cute younger sister might need to be told this, but as a parent of three adult children, I should no longer need to hear these words. Yet, not long ago I caught myself feeling slighted when I was told that a colleague ...
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On this last day of the Christmas Season two questions concerning Jesus’ baptism arise in me: 1) What is Jesus, the sinless one, doing in the waters reserved for sinners? And 2) Why is this story proclaimed in the Christmas Season, given the fact that Jesus is about 30 years old? Beyond satisfying our curiosity around those questions, we should always ask—with every gospel story–what is this gospel story inviting us to, here and now? I think those first two ...
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Throughout my life I have had many friends and acquaintances who have been loyal members of evangelical churches. These people are faith filled and extremely committed to the teachings of their individual churches. We have had many conversations over the years on the “taboo” topic of religion, and I have been blessed and enriched to learn of the faith principles that guide their lives.
One question that would often be posed to me, and to be honest, would frequently intimidate me, was: “are you ...
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Of the four gospel writers, Matthew is the only one who tells the story of the wise men. I can see why the other three may have shied away for telling this story; it would have been a bit risky to do so. Many Jewish people then, like many Catholics now, thought they were the only ones who mattered and the only people that God loved. They believed that they were the only people that had the one true religion ...
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