bible
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The Bible readings that Catholics use at Mass this week are an interesting mix that, taken together, seem to underscore that God sees things very differently than the culture around us does. There’s a passage from Paul’s first letter to Timothy that actually shows up twice, in the Monday daily Mass and then again this
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What does it mean, really, for Christianity to be countercultural? One thing you hear a lot in Christian circles is that Christians are called to be countercultural. Usually (like virtually all things American), this notion means something different, depending on which side of our societal divide you inhabit. Traditionalist Christians tend to equate being countercultural
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Last Sunday’s Old Testament passage from Deuteronomy was a beautiful passage from Moses on how the law of God is written on our hearts, and the Gospel was the Parable of the Good Samaritan, so my guess is that nobody paid much attention to the second reading, Colossians 1:15-20. But Paul says something interesting in
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Be like … Paul? Even though Paul was my father’s name, my middle name, my confirmation name, and the author of half the New Testament books, he’s not one of my favorite saints. He was crazy smart and went non-stop, but it’s hard to read his letters without thinking he was also really high drama.
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So what? Last Sunday was the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity for Catholics – basically there’s a lineup of deep-topic feast days on Sundays from Ascension to Pentecost to Trinity Sunday to Corpus Christi that celebrate different important but hard to grasp theological concepts. If you are the type that thinks that faith is
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I don’t usually post Bible verses by themselves. I figure you all have access to a Bible, or the internet, or both. But this passage, from Sirach (which is not in Protestant Bibles, though it was likely a passage Jesus knew), deserves it’s own spotlight: “A kind mouth multiplies friends and appeases enemies, And gracious
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You first. Starting with yesterday’s Gospel, the readings for daily mass have some challenging things to say about how we Christians ought to act. Yesterday, we heard: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” And: “Give to everyone who asks of
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In Luke 21 (which is the Gospel for the first week of Advent this year), Jesus warns his followers about a final judgment day, saying, “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life, and that day catch you by surprise like a trap.” Of course,
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I’m a work in progress when it comes to caring for creation, but I’m trying to notice the ways in which the Bible includes nature in God’s love story. This Sunday, the 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, is mostly about the blind seeing and the deaf hearing. Isaiah 35 talks about it, Psalm 146 talks
Reading Francis 