They shall be my people, and I will be their God, with faithfulness and justice. Zechariah 8:8 “For the one who is least among all of you is the one who is the greatest.” Luke 9: 48 We are reminded with the words of Zechariah that the God of Israel and our God is a…[read more]
As one who came of age in the Church immediately following the Second Vatican Council with its proper restoration of the meaning of the Incarnation for our humanity, I have always found the foundational spiritual teaching of today’s reading from Jeremiah a difficult one to comprehend fully and truly appreciate. “Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings. . . .” Yet, if I hear the entire sentence which qualifies the “curse” as applying to one who trusts human beings solely, then I can begin to recognize its truth in my own experience.…[read more]
Both the Lord in Genesis and Jesus in Mark’s gospel are presented in today’s readings as apparently frustrated. In the very anthropomorphic presentation of God in Genesis, the Creator is presented as experiencing regret for having created free human beings. In Mark’s description of Jesus’ attempting to teach his disciples to avoid the hypocrisy and self-alienation of the Pharisees and Herod, we hear of the pain that the disciples’ obduracy evokes in him. It is striking to ponder the fact that Jesus and God might experience the pathos that is so painful an aspect of our own experience. It is…[read more]
There I shall store all my grain and other goods and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!” But God said to him, “You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things…[read more]
Did you receive the Spirit from works of the law, or from faith in what you heard? Are you so stupid? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? Did you experience so many things in vain?—if indeed it was in vain. Does the one who supplies the Spirit to you…[read more]
“So now I tell you, have nothing to do with these men, and let them go. For if this endeavor or this activity is of human origin, it will destroy itself. But it it comes from God, you will not be able to destroy them; you may even find yourselves fighting against God.” Acts 5:…[read more]
This man, delivered up by the set plan and foreknowledge of God, you killed, using lawless men to crucify him. But God raised him up, releasing him from the throes of death, because it was impossible for him to be held by it. Acts 2:23-4 You will show me the path to life, / fullness…[read more]
Thus says the Lord: This is what I commanded my people: Listen to my voice; then I will be your God and you shall be my people. Walk in all the ways that I command you, so that you may prosper. But they obeyed not, nor did they pay heed. They walked in the hardness…[read more]
In the wilderness I will put cedar trees, / acacias, myrtles, olives. / In the desert I will plant juniper, / plane tree and cypress side by side; / so that all may see and know, / may all observe and understand, / that the hand of Yahweh has done this, / that the Holy…[read more]
They shall be my people, and I will be their God, with faithfulness and justice. Zechariah 8:8 “For the one who is least among all of you is the one who is the greatest.” Luke 9: 48 We are reminded with the words of Zechariah that the God of Israel and our God is a…[read more]
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