The Good Word

The pillars of the Jerusalem church are continuing their investigation of the teaching of Paul of Tarsus His statements on abandoning circumcision the irrelevance of the Jewish law for new Christians his practice of traveling with women co-workers and allowing men and women to pray together in p

Leading up to the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Harry Potter fans speculated as to who might die since author J K Rowling had indicated that major characters would meet their demise in the final book The biggest question of all involved Harry himself Would Rowling dare to

I promised in my last post that I would address the issue of what to do with all the violence and battles of the Old Testament I find that spiritualizing the battles of the Old Testament is an inadequate way of dealing with this dark side of the Bible but because of the complexity of the issue

This Sunday is the twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time In his reflection Father Daniel Harrington writes about the subject of money and God in Luke s gospel The words money and spirituality are seldom found in the same sentence Yet Luke and other biblical writers give a good deal

According to Buttrick in his magisterial work Homiletic Moves and Structures to fail to create images in preaching or any form of speaking is to risk making no real impact at all Ideas without depiction are apt to be abstract and oddly enough unconvincing he says On the other hand it i

This past Saturday night I was invited to take part in a show on WCCO radio in Minneapolis The topic for the hour was the recent revelation and publication of Mother Teresa s private correspondence concerning her long periods of spiritual darkness regarding the presence of God The host of the sh

Friday September 14 is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross A person has to have faith so often a lot of it to think that the cross should be exalted the cross after all is apart from accompanying pains a grinding slow way could take a day of choking to death St Paul stands a

What is God like How does he feel about us about you and me Jesus tells us through three stories — about a lost sheep a lost coin and a man whose son had gone wrong In the society of Jesus time many of the flocks of sheep were owned by the community two or three shepherds were in ch

24th Sunday A Bishop in a rural diocese was explaining to the confirmation class how he was the shepherd of the flock Given that many of the children came from large sheep ranches he decided to draw on today s Gospel as an analogy for his pastoral leadership I care for all of you like the Good

It is not unusual for a gospel reading to employ highly exaggerated language and examples We see and hear them in the passage from Luke 14 25-33 Should we as followers of Christ hate our parents spouses children and siblings The mere thought seems antithetical to the Christian message An