bible
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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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OK, so, when you’re too sick to go to any of the Christmas masses, part of the makeup assignment is to read the readings for all the variations of masses – Christmas Eve vigil, Christmas mass during the night, Christmas mass at dawn (which probably isn’t too crowded), Christmas mass during the day. It’s not…
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We have a Stage 5 God, a Stage 4 Church, and too many Stage 3 leaders. One of my favorite books on leadership is Tribal Leadership by Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright. Their approach presupposes that people are social in nature, that workplaces are essentially tribes (or tribes of tribes, if they’re big…
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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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The readings that the Catholic Church uses for Sunday Mass and the ones it chooses for daily Mass don’t intentionally line up; the daily readings generally work slowly through a Gospel and another book of the Bible, while the ones on Sunday will work through a Gospel and another book of the New Testament, with…
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Get out of the way. There’s a little story in Mark (10:46-52, this Sunday’s Gospel for you Catholics) about the healing of a blind man named Bartimaeus. It’s a pretty straightforward story that only takes a couple of verses, but even a small story like this has details worth reflecting on. Jesus and a crowd…
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In the wake of Hurricane Helene’s devastation, not only of my home state of Florida, but a lot of the southeastern United States, I don’t have a lot to offer that ties what we’ve been through into a neat little bow. In fact, there’s a bit of a through line in the essays of Abandoning…
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It’s not a buffet. The readings for the 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (which is this Sunday, Sept. 1) all point to what it means to be just, but they’re each a little more complicated than they might appear. The Old Testament is from the Book of Deuteronomy, as Moses talks up God’s Law for…
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Asking the right question is a gift, both for the asker and the recipient. I’ve been playing around with ChatGPT a little – mostly for fun, a little for work – and I’ve noticed that there’s an art to asking it the right question. A lot of times, it takes me 3-4 rounds of follow-up…
Reading Francis 