I love action movies, but I confess, sometimes, my ability to suspend my disbelief and go along with some outlandish scene is pretty near impossible. Usually, the idea that something like this could really happen is just too remote even for my imagination. Sometimes we Christians fall into the same trap about our lives. Yeah, we know what the scripture says about how we should live: love God and your neighbor, forgive…
‘The intellect does many good and bad things without the body, whereas the body can do neither good nor evil without the intellect. This is because the law of freedom applies to what happens before we act.’ St. Mark the Ascetic
I want to go with you! My daughters love to go places with daddy. It doesn’t really matter where I’m going; they just like to tag along. And that makes sense. After all, daddies buy candy! There’s something comforting about being with Another Who is stronger than you and seems to know where He is going. There is something comforting in the surety, in the confidence that that sure direction brings. It…
Today, just a reminder that Sunday is the Feast of Pentecost. This threshold from one Church Season to another offers us a spiritual treasure house of insight and wisdom and instruction on how to take seriously and actually practice our faith in such a way that our life is changed! For 50 days we have not knelt at the consecration of the gifts in the Divine Liturgy in honor of the universe…
Recently I’ve been struggling alongside some dear friends, trying to get to the root of a systemic challenge in a community. In fact, this has become a full blown development of a strategic plan! And I’ve made an important discovery that I’m sure won’t surprise you, but it has been a concrete revelation to me: If you always treat the symptoms of a problem and never its root cause, you’re only maintenancing…
Sometimes what’s best for us isn’t really apparent in the middle of our journey. It’s only later we discover that an event, though difficult at the time, actually turned out to be the best thing for us. As the old country song says “They hindsight 20/20…” This coming Sunday is the Feast of Pentecost, the Descent of the Holy Spirit onto His Church. Today, we still live in the afterglow of the…
All too often we spend our lives waiting for that perfect moment when everything is going “right” and all around me is positive and affirming. And, the longer we live, the more disillusioned we become because that “moment” seems to never come! Oh, to be sure, there are flashes of “just right” in our lives. Those moments when all the traffic lights are green when you’re in a hurry to get some…
Today the Lord reveals that “eternal life” isn’t about survival or mere existence. He tells us through our Gospel Lesson today that eternal life is “that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Read the whole chapter of John 17 and you’ll find out that this eternal life is meant to also create true unity. But not just any kind of unity. No, the unity…
A short thought today on our Gospel Lesson in John 14:1-11: Our Lord Jesus says “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know him and have seen him.” We always miss out on the real power of being a Christian when we fall into the temptation…
