"Fides Quaerens Intellectum" – St. Anselm
The more spiritual you are, the more conscious contact you have with God, the more mindful you become—the more religious you are—the less hold any laws will have on you. You will instinctively know what the right thing to do is by following the law of love in your heart, and you will do it. Continue Reading →
I’m certain that something happened on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. All four gospels record the event. Some scholars suggest that, when the bread and fish were distributed, people who had brought food with them took it out and began sharing it with others. In that case, it was a miracle of compassion and generosity. But, it doesn’t matter. Continue Reading →
Why do we care about this nameless leper? After all, the gospels tell us that Jesus cured many people — perhaps hundreds — over the years of his ministry. Of these, there are twenty-six individuals mentions. There are eighteen people cured (fourteen in the Synoptics — Matthew, Mark, and Luke — and four in John). In addition, there are five cures of demoniacs (all in the Synoptics), and three times, Jesus raised people from the dead (two in the Synoptics and one in John). Of these people Jesus cured, all but two are nameless. The exceptions are Bartimeus, cured of Continue Reading →
Let’s talk about healing this morning. In Mark’s gospel, Jesus comes to Simon and Andrew’s home where Simon’s mother-in-law is sick with a fever — and he cures her. In several places in our Christian Scriptures, we’re told that Jesus came into the world to preach, and heal, and suffer. In all four of the gospels, Jesus is continuously presented to us as a healer — and more than a healer, because, in at least three instances, we encounter Jesus raising the dead: the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow of Naim, and, of course, Lazarus. I have Continue Reading →
“What have you to do with us, you who are reading this? I know who you are — a Holy One of God!” How does that make you feel when you read those words? Really kind of creepy? If you’re like me, you’d read along in today’s gospel and think something like, “Oh, the demon recognized Jesus as the Messiah.” You might not immediately catch how threatening those words could be.Yet, They are threatening on so many levels. We’ve all had strangers phone us and call us by name. Don’t we answer, “Yes?” with a certain hesitancy? We may ask, Continue Reading →