mercy
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I’m hoping God prefers his prophets to be reluctant and conflicted. There’s a story from Jeremiah 28 that came up in Monday’s Mass readings and has stuck with me since. I’m no expert on the Old Testament, especially not the prophets, but I’ll do my best to give you an overview. We tend to think…
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I took piano lessons when I was a kid for four or five years. I wasn’t good at it, but I learned to read music and could make my way through “Für Elise,” the “Star Wars” theme, “Send in the Clowns,” the theme to “Endless Love”. You know, the classics. But I never liked to…
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I seem to have taught the Facebook algorithm that I like t-shirts with faith-based slogans (which is fine by me). One popular one says “Be salty; Stay lit”, cheekily translating Matthew 5:13-14, in which Jesus tells his disciples that they are the salt of the earth and the light of the world, as part of…
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The Bible readings for the Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time (October 26, 2025) seems tailor-made for Pope Leo XIV’s newly released apostolic exhortation, Dilexi te. The first reading from Sirach dwells on God hearing the cry of the oppressed, the wail of the orphan and widow, the prayer of the lowly.* The Psalm response is…
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We are careening toward a very different Holy Week. Traditionally, Lenten disciplines have been an exercise in additional self-control: we commit to pray a little extra, fast from something, give a little more. And we measure our Lent by how much self-control we exert in keeping those commitments we made. Maybe even in the face…
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I’ve been reflecting on the current stage of the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church as seen through the lens of moral foundations theory, because it seems to me that one of the dimensions of dissonance in the responses of Catholic factions to what’s been unfolding since the summer of ‘18 relates to the…
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Today I had the honor and responsibility to lead a very informal service for my family in remembrance of my sister, Sharon. I’m not an ordained…anything, really, but it was a family-only thing at one of her favorite places, Whitey’s Fish Camp, and I was as qualified to lead a service as Whitey’s was to…
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I think the last time I blogged about anything, I banged out some lyrics to songs that had come up in my playlist, but I only referenced one song – Derek Minor’s Change The World (with guest Hollyn). Here’s the song with lyrics for the uninitiated. (I’m not typing it out.) It came up again tonight…
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Our church held it’s annual festival last weekend. Now, I grew up in a respectable Southern Protestant household, so this was foreign to my childhood. If we wanted to ride marginally safe spinny rides, our only outlet was the county fair. On its face, the festival is a pure sellout to the devil, raising money…
Reading Francis 