Wednesday, March 31, 2010
“God has given me the tongue of a teacher that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.” Jesus comes that he might bear our burdens and give us rest, and yet how true the psalm is to his experience: “Insults have broken my heart…I looked for pity and there was none, for comforters, and I found none.”
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Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Isaiah speaks the word of the Lord: “I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” Obviously, Jesus is the light, but in the dark – “and it was night”—“during the supper with his disciples, Jesus was troubled in spirit…”
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Monday, March 29, 2010
“Mary took a pound of costly perfume…” and Judas protested. Jesus countered: “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
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Sunday, March 28, 2010
“Morning by morning God wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.” Isn’t this why so many of us give the first minutes or even the first hour of our day to prayer, to listening?
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Saturday, March 27, 2010
Too many Christians wonder why God would “will” the torture and death of an innocent man. God’s will is peace. Although some passages of the New Testament imply that God wanted this offering to wipe out sin, John offers a far different reason for the death of Jesus.
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Saturday, March 27, 2010
Too many Christians wonder why God would “will” the torture and death of an innocent man. God’s will is peace. Although some passages of the New Testament imply that God wanted this offering to wipe out sin, John offers a far different reason for the death of Jesus.
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Friday, March 26, 2010
Jesus asks his enemies, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?”
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Thursday, March 25, 2010
Note: This annunciation is made to Mary. In Matthew’s gospel it is Joseph to whom the Lord is announced. The psalm and the Hebrews reading keep the focus on Jesus. While this is a feast of Mary, our liturgy reminds us it is a feast of Jesus as well.
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Wednesday, March 24, 2010
After hearing of the three young men thrown into the furnace, we watch Jesus handle conflict. Our reading opens with the famous adage: the truth will make you free.
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Tuesday, March 23, 2010
A terrible story of serpents in the desert and yet how true: our scourge can often become the source of healing.
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Monday, March 22, 2010
Those of you who like TV law dramas, read all of Susanna’s plight. Pray Psalm 23 as she might have, after being rescued by Daniel’s cleverness. We concentrate on Jesus who is more and more undercut by his enemies.
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Sunday, March 21, 2010
God is about to do a new thing, Isaiah announces, and indeed, rivers flow in the desert. The psalmist responds: “Our God has done great things for us! We are filled with joy!”
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Saturday, March 20, 2010
Jeremiah is in anguish. Jesus in today’s gospel isn’t even on the scene. “There was a division in the crowd about him…
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Friday, March 19, 2010
The readings point to Jesus as son of David, son of Abraham, and finally son of Joseph. Matthew traces Jesus’ genealogy back to Abraham, and our gospel today opens with Joseph as the one who passes on the lineage.
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Thursday, March 18, 2010
Moses pleads and God repents. The enemies of Jesus are far from repenting
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Wednesday, March 17, 2010
A servant song from Isaiah in which God “says to prisoners, ‘Come out,’ and to those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves’…
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Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Powerful waters are the theme of all the readings, but Jesus’ question is so timely for us. He says to the man, lying paralyzed for 38 years at the pool at the Sheep Gate: “Do you want to be whole?”
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Monday, March 15, 2010
The two major readings tell of festivals, but the psalm reflects the dying-rising theme of this season. “God’s anger is for a moment, but God’s favor lasts forever.
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Sunday, March 14, 2010
In the parable of the prodigal son, probably most of us identify at this point in life with the elder who does everything right. The father reminds him: “All I have is yours.”
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Saturday, March 13, 2010
Repetition is good, and so we pray Psalm 51 often during Lent, Another prayer highly recommended by Jesus is not the recounting of our good deeds to God like the Pharisee in today’s gospel but this, from the one standing at the back of the temple: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
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Friday, March 12, 2010
Through Hosea, God promises, “I will love them freely.” Then God cries out in the psalm: “Oh that you would listen to me! I would feed you with the finest wheat and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you!”
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Thursday, March 11, 2010
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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Jesus teaches: “Whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kin-dom of heaven…” Notice, the law-breaker is still included in the kin-dom. Jesus is so inclusive!
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Tuesday, March 9, 2010
“Peter came to Jesus and said, “Lord, if a brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times? Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, I tell you, but seventy-seven times.” Peter who wears his emotions on his face and in his big mouth, must be easily offended.
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Monday, March 8, 2010
As we move along in Lent, our readings show the hostility building against Jesus. Naaman the Syrian, healed in the waters of the Jordan, becomes an object lesson as Jesus challenges the narrowness of his hometown folk.
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Sunday, March 7, 2010
We may have a subtle theme this week: holy ground. Moses is in the wilderness when he encounters God in the burning bush and is instructed to take off his shoes on holy ground
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Saturday, March 6, 2010
We all could probably re-tell the story of the Prodigal Son and most of us have heard that it is really the father who is prodigal, meaning extravagant, welcoming the son who has wasted everything “on dissolute living.” So let us focus on the elder son to whom the father says: “My child, you are always with me and all that I have is yours.”
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Friday, March 5, 2010
“Pit” is an operative word this week. Jesus was put in a pit, a deep hole just the size of a man, according to the tour guide in Israel who pointed out Jesus’ possible prison.
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Thursday, March 4, 2010
“Jesus told this parable to those among the Pharisees who loved money: ‘There was a rich man who dressed in purple and fine linen and feasted sumptuously every day. At his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table…”
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Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Jeremiah prays, much in the style of Jesus. He prays for his enemies: “Pay attention to me, Lord. Listen to what my adversaries say….They have dug a pit for my life. Remember how I stood before you to speak good for them, to turn away your wrath from them.”
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Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Some of you complain when our liturgists pick and choose the verses from a long text like the opening chapter of Isaiah. So reach for your Bible and read the whole, including the verses missing above.
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Monday, March 1, 2010
Last week I broke my own resolution for Lent. I will focus on only a part of one reading, encouraging you to read the whole passage slowly and preferably aloud. So I begin again, and so can you with what you hope to offer God this season.
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