christianity
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Why are the disciples different from the crowd? There is a section from the Gospel of Matthew (13:10-17) in which the disciples ask Jesus why he talks to the crowd in parables, and Jesus’ answer has never really been that satisfying to me. Basically he says, you guys are special, so you get the decoded…
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Who’s really family? +++ “While Jesus was speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers appeared outside, wishing to speak with him. Someone told him, ‘Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking to speak with you.’ “But he said in reply to the one who told him, ‘Who is my mother? Who…
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“As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free.” – Battle Hymn of the Republic, adapted from Julia Ward Howe’s 1861 poem Of all I’ve seen and heard over the last weekend, in which the United States of America celebrated the 250th anniversary of its independence, the line above continues…
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“Jeff! Ti aspetto da due anni!” Jeff! I’ve been waiting two years for you! Whenever we go to Assisi, we start each day with Mass. Six days a week, we walk down the hill from our hotel through town to the Basilica of Santa Chiara and settle into the intimate Chapel of San Giorgio (which…
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A good friend asked me, “Do you look at your faith differently – decades on – now that you have raised a girl child into a woman?” That seems like an appropriate topic for Father’s Day. It’s a great question, and unfortunately I need a running start to answer it. Lesser loves either prepare us…
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Since Memorial Day, patriotism has been on my mind. I am old enough to remember the American Bicentennial. I was seven, and I remember TV specials, local parades, and especially a traveling exhibit on America’s first 200 years that criss-crossed the country by Amtrak. I think I saw it a couple of different times, but…
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I am headed on retreat and off the grid for a couple of weeks starting tomorrow, but I couldn’t let a pope release a social encyclical without at least a quick skim before I left, and Pope Leo released Magnifica Humanitas this morning. So here I am. I haven’t read any of the commentary already…
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If reports are true, Pope Leo XIV will release his first encyclical on May 15th, titled Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent humanity). Since this is unrelated to my day job, I will almost certainly not be among the first to read and report on this, so I wanted to try to flag a few things in advance…
Reading Francis 