Power
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“Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear.” One of the things I like to do early in the week is read through the Scripture passages that will be used that week at Mass. Catholics have a set (2-year) cycle of passages for each weekday mass, and a separate (3-year) cycle for Sundays. A lot
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Fruit is either ripening, or it is rotting. I test high on liking to take personality tests, I like to joke. Of the many personality assessments I’ve taken over the years, one has been particularly clarifying for me as a leader. While I don’t remember the name of the instrument, my whole work team took
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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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Who can tell you, successfully, that you’re living life wrong? I’ve been thinking about this question in relation to the Gospel story of the “rich young ruler” found in Mark 10, as well as in relation to our current cultural divisions in America. The Gospel story, in short, is this: a rich young man comes
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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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I was reflecting this morning on the miracle of our planet’s orbit around the sun. Were our path any farther away from the heat of the sun, Earth would be too cold to harbor life as we know it. Were we any closer, we would all burn up from too much heat. And yet we
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This would have been back during the fight over the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare, which my organization supported on policy grounds. It was summer, and we were, like the foolishly idealistic policy wonks that we were, trying to educate our members about what was and wasn’t in this significant piece of health care legislation, explain the
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This was a tough week. An idol of sorts got knocked off his pedestal, and really just about defenestrated. When I was in seminary, I had to defend my honors thesis to a committee, which is nothing unusual. What was, in retrospect, funny, was that the highest compliment I got from the committee (other than
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As Pope Francis prepares to make history by becoming the first pope to address a joint session of Congress, one Congressman has made news by declaring he will boycott the pope’s visit, because the Congressman believes the pope is going to focus on climate change (which is probably a fair bet) instead of other Catholic
Reading Francis 