Royalty is a hot button issue in Europe because the Church often identified itself with the power and glory of monarchs. Supposedly this was for the protection of religion but in always involved the destruction of religion. It took a long time for the Church and much blood before the simplicity and vulnerability of Christ [...]

The Church liturgy reflects the natural reality of the northernish part of the world…darker, too dry or too wet…colder. Can we make it through the long winter? Will spring just bring more disaster? The scripture readings from Daniel, the Gospel readings about the end of time, the Second Coming…try to cross out the happy shopping, [...]

The book of Numbers is about the numbers of Hebrews that went with Moses across the desert to the promised land. It is a delightful book.
Part of the delight is how Moses handled the organization of this great crowd of ex-slaves. Foundational to the organization was a sense that Moses was a prophet…a leader who, [...]

I wrote this as a pre-bulletin for the Catholic Community. The letter of St James, (3:16-4:3) is the second reading for September 20, 2009.
You are another generation at war.
Lives lost and resources wasted are the standard costs. But without a draft and taxes to pay for the war, we all of us, can ignore the [...]

XXIII Sunday: Mark 7:31 ff. The restoration of speech!
Shy? Afraid to speak? Here is Jesus approached outside Jewish territory and the encounter enables someone who could not speak before.
In some ancient cultures the heart was thought to be a kind of thought producer, like our brain because people had experiences of words “getting stuck in [...]

The post title is the old name of the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ that was celebated in some countries this past Thursday and in the US and France to be celebrated Sunday. During Holy Week I met an evangelical Protestant who for some reason right off the bat insisted on telling [...]

The feast is dominated by the big news from Ireland…a nearly 3000 page SUMMARY of a huge report on sex abuse in Catholic orphanages run by the Irish Christian Brothers, Sisters of Mercy, and a number of other religious orders over the past four or five decades. The Irish government was in cahoots failing to [...]

This Sunday is NOT Ascension in New England. It is the 7th Sunday after Easter. So the Mass I am preparing for is a little bit different from most of the country, indeed, most of the world. But this Gospel is a good dialogue about what Ascension means even if it is not the Ascension [...]

I was raised a Southern Baptist where I experienced a very low theology of the Lord’s Supper that was coupled with a very high, very reverent practice. We only had the celebration four times a year.  At the time of the Reformation that was a radically frequent reception of Communion. I remember [...]

+++

THE DONKEY
G.K. Chesterton
When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;
With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I [...]