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With a hat-tip to baseball philosopher Casey Stengel, who said the secret to managing was to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are still undecided, sometimes I think the secret to my success is keeping the folks who think I don’t curse from those who know better. Which comes to…
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OK, so Matthew 16 ends with a version of the saying that we heard at mass Sunday from Luke 14 about needing to hate your mother and father and brothers and sisters and pick up your cross if you want to follow Jesus. There’s a Christian radio station in Orlando that has a catchphrase that…
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A note on Matthew 15: maybe my new favorite miracle is here, the feeding of the 4,000. Here’s what I love about it. The story plays out just like you always heard: Jesus teaching to big crowd until late in the day, tells his disciples to feed them because they are too far from any…
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Who is the healer and who is being healed? In my too-slow walk through the New Testament, Matthew 14 has an interesting little touch you can miss if, like me, you just focus on the chunks of stories you’ve heard a zillion times. If you just get those out of context – Herod beheading John…
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One of the things I’ve been nudged back toward is actually reading the Bible – not just the daily mass readings, which are sort of a highlight reel of the whole thing – but going through the New Testament in order. The fact that I’m only on Matthew 11 shows that this new resolution is…
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Hey, you know how you can pass the same place a zillion times and on the zillion-and-first time, you notice something that was always there but you never really saw before? Today’s gospel is Matthew 9:18-26 – Jesus brings back to life a girl who died (with another story in the middle that inspired a…
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My Facebook sermon for the week (not that I preach, except about getting your expense reports and timesheets done on time. And cleaning up the kitchen, to some family members.): “Fun is Good.” I’ve been thinking a lot about an old boss of mine, Mike Veeck, lately. In fact, I had a dream last night…
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You know, it would be nice if we could just explain it away. Like, “it’s not ‘money is the root of all evil’ but ‘the love of money is the root of all evil.” That sort of clarification can help us sleep at night. (By the way, that’s Paul in 1 Timothy.) James doesn’t give…
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Which heresy are American Christians more prone to these days? Which one are you personally more susceptible to? If there is a verse from James that people know, it’s probably this one: “But be doers of the word and not hearers who deceive themselves.” (1:22) (Though we substitute “only” for that last phrase.) It’s in…
Reading Francis 