Later today, we will celebrate with the ringing of bells, the singing of alleluias, and the rising of Jesus the Christ.
Continue readingTag Archives: Abraham
Through Jesus, we call God our Father
And so the story of our relationship beginning with Abraham begins.
Continue readingThe Father’s truth is precisely what we need to hear
And so we hear and hopefully listen with mind, heart, and soul!
Continue readingLike Joseph, we trust God’s actions in our lives
Enough said. It is no wonder that the church sees Joseph as the universal patron of the church.
Continue readingOur Lenten journey should be deeply interwoven into the rhythms of our lives
Let us surrender. Let us be opened up to learn and follow.
Continue readingSee and appreciate your gifts and talents
To bury, as if dead the person and the personal qualities we have been given, is an unimaginable sin against our very selves.
Continue readingAre we willing to produce good fruit for the ‘long haul’?
If indeed humans have existed on this planet for 160,000 years, God definitely has “hung around” around with us, put up with a lot, loved us in spite of ourselves, and continues to grace and gift us without conditions and without limits.
Continue readingLike Mary, we are called
+ We are moving through narrative sections of the scriptures, and they do not present us with a lot of teaching through parables and other storytelling devices.
However, today is a most interesting passage from the very first verses of Matthew’s Gospel — the famous Genealogy of Jesus.
Also interestingly, for whatever reason, those who put together the scriptures that would be used in liturgy chose to leave out Verse 17 which actually is said to be largely artificial composition, arranging three sets of 14 generations — 42 in all.
It begins with Abraham and interestingly includes good and not so good peeps.
It also includes five women, which was a rarity.
And even rarer was that among those five women were prostitutes and gentiles.
Of course, Mary is also noted. All of this makes up the line of ancestors — the Davidic line — from which Jesus was born.
He, Emmanuel (God is with us), entered into humanity through the Virgin Mary.
The feast day is a big one in both the Eastern and Western churches, but more so in the East where it is a solemnity.
It falls on Sept. 8 (also artificially rather than historically) because Sept. 8 comes exactly nine months after the celebration of the Immaculate Conception, just as the Annunciation precedes the birth of Jesus by nine months (celebrated on March 25).
The thorough artificial listing of names is to root Jesus historically in time and to really show his human nature attached to people both good and not so good — family.
That’s the way it was, and that’s the way it is.
There is a choice for the first reading.
The Micah passage sets us up for the Davidic line that would be traced back to a tiny and insignificant place, and from this clan of insignificance would come a mighty ruler — the prediction of the messiah realized in our Gospel passage.
The other choice of readings from Paul’s letter to the Romans speaks of how we are called by God just as Mary herself was called: “and those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”
Really, like Mary, we are CALLED.
And when we realize that deep within we are also invited to be “conformed to the image of his Son.”
Continue readingMuch is thrown up to our ceiling and against our wall
We rejoice in his complete openness through marital and parental near-catastrophes and rejoice in Joseph’s faithful response to God.
Continue readingWhy are you terrified?
Maybe this God, in all kinds of ways and through all kinds of things — and in both good and bad times, and in joy and pain and sorrow — maybe this God truly has come to his people.
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