If I had ever managed to find time to take the divinity school course on “Troubling New Testament Texts,” I would have lobbied to include today’s Gospel passage on the syllabus.

I like to think of Elizabeth’s unborn baby, the future prophet John the Baptist, dancing with delight in today’s Gospel of the Visitation.

How can we spare the time to let others know of our care and concern?

The paralytic’s friends might have told him in dismay, “Let’s come back another day when it is less of a hassle.” But that is not what they said.

There is scarcely a parent alive who has not at some point uttered the words, “You’re not wearing that, are you?”

The three questions God asks Adam and Eve lay bare the threefold nature of their wrongdoing.

We are called to place ourselves intentionally within the physical and temporal structures in which God may speak to us.

Buoyed by that love and mercy, we find wholeness — peace — through acts of kindness, healing and justice.

All of us occasionally have “last straw” moments in our lives, when we feel we simply cannot bear the weight of one more demand.

The person who fears the Lord will follow his or her conscience.