Spiritual Gifts, the Holy Spirit and our Abilities
For Pentecost I preached this sermon. The sermon emphasizes a certain aspect of Spiritual gifts: namely that they aren’t equivalent to things we do well or like to do. For instance you don’t have the...
View Article12 Chapters on Listening and Being Right
Ed. note: after publishing this I recognized the genre . It’s the ancient Christian genre of writing on the spiritual life in “chapters”: short paragraphs over which one is too linger in...
View ArticleThe Mystagogy of Easter : The Doubt of Thomas the Twin
The lectionary each season of Easter brings us back to the same texts. Lent has a similar structure but there is a little more variation between each year in the three year cycle, while for Easter we...
View ArticleThe Mystagogy of Easter: According to what Reality Do We Live?
Mystagogy for the Third Week of Easter: The Meaning of God’s Union with Humanity (For the first in this Easter mystagogy series see The Doubt of Thomas the Twin) We are encouraged in the texts for the...
View ArticleEaster Mystagogy Week 4: Good Shepherd.
How are we to hear the parabolic speech of Christ and God as our shepherd? “The Lord is my shepherd…” and “I am the Good Shepherd...”? In these passages of the third week of Easter and in the image...
View ArticleMystagogy of Easter: Vine and Branches
If you are like me raised in Sunday School the Gospel for the 5th Sunday of Easter may be very familiar to you: I am the vine you are the branches. This familiarity shouldn’t render impotent this rich...
View ArticleGod Forever Physical: Mystery of the Feast of the Ascension of Christ
Today we celebrate the feast of the Ascension of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, into heaven. As this feast is on a Thursday, it is at times transferred to the 7th Sunday of Easter or passed over...
View ArticleWeaving One’s life with Christ’s: review of Sight in a Sandstorm
Sight in Sandstorm is a book difficult to categorize: part devotional, part creative retelling of the four Gospels, part historical Jesus scholarship and part devotional. Ann Temkin creatively weaves...
View ArticleThe Joy of Transformation
Texts for contemplation: Matthew 3:1-17; Mark 1:1-11; Luke 3:1-21; John 1:19-34; John 2:1-11 Although we have left behind the celebration of Christmas, liturgically we are still basking in the light of...
View ArticleHaving Nothing to Show: Spirituality without Accounts
Jesus said to the twelve, “As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment;...
View ArticleListening to the Mind of Christ In Time of Crisis: Nothing is Hidden that...
12 Meanwhile, when many thousands of the crowd had gathered so that they were trampling on one another, Jesus began to speak first to his disciples, “Be on your guard against the yeast of the...
View ArticleListening for the Mind of Christ in Time of Crisis: Do not be afraid, Part 3
12 Meanwhile, when many thousands of the crowd had gathered so that they were trampling on one another, Jesus began to speak first to his disciples, “Be on your guard against the yeast of the...
View ArticleThe Veil Over the Holy Nativity
The icon of the Holy Nativity has something that eludes us. I return, again and again, to its contemplation because it is a rich image but also because it challenges me. I don’t see it completely. The...
View ArticleUnbounded Love As Resistance: Standing against Sin and Evil, Part 2
Part 1: Love command as interpretive framework for the Sermon on the Mount Part 2 Love command as Standing against Sin and Evil A careful reading of Matthew’s version of Jesus saying reveals a...
View ArticleOn Paczki’s, Fat Tuesday, and Ashes
What’s going on with Packi’s and Mardi Gras? Today in many grocery stores In Chicago you will find the polish pastry paczki, prominently displayed for sale. Today is of course Paczki Day, or Mardi...
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