Monday, May 31, 2010
When many families and friends gather today for picnics, we can remember how important family was to Mary and Elizabeth. What rejoicing in the Spirit when the two newly pregnant women met.
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Sunday, May 30, 2010
How good it is and how pleasant not to have to untangle the history and theology of this doctrine, still only human words gasping to communicate mystery.
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Saturday, May 29, 2010
Jude is a piece of apocalyptic literature, with only one chapter, the best part of which is offered for our reflection.
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Friday, May 21, 2010
What must Paul, such a man of action, have suffered in these long years of imprisonment? Felix and Festus play politics and Paul sits, inactive.
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Thursday, May 20, 2010
How it must have grated the Sanhedrin to have a Roman soldier convene them. Roman law guaranteed that the accused have a chance to meet the accusers face to face.
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Wednesday, May 19, 2010
In case we forgot, our liturgists repeat the last line from yesterday’s gospel: “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one.”
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Tuesday, May 18, 2010
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Monday, May 17, 2010
Gathering into one new family. That is what Paul initiates and completes with a group of disciples who had not even heard there was a Holy Spirit. They were baptized, Paul laid hands on them, and the Spirit came upon them, about 12 in all.
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Sunday, May 16, 2010
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Sunday, May 16, 2010
Imagine what the Apostles were thinking, feeling, wondering as Jesus promised them “power from on high.”
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Saturday, May 15, 2010
We are so used to referring to Jesus as our great High Priest, following Hebrews, that we forget that like so many of us he was disqualified from priesthood because he was born defective.
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Friday, May 14, 2010
We begin with the narrative of Matthais’ election to fill out the number Twelve, sacred to Luke who portrays the young church as the new Israel with Twelve new tribes.
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Thursday, May 13, 2010
Community life in Corinth included Paul living and working with Priscilla and her husband Aquila. On the Sabbath, Paul would begin with good news for the Jews gathering in the synagogue; then, rejected, he would turn to the Gentiles.
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Wednesday, May 12, 2010
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Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Stripped, beaten, chained. Paul and Silas respond with hymns “and the prisoners were listening.” What a countercultural response to injustice!
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Monday, May 10, 2010
In the gospel Jesus promises the Advocate or Paraclete, “the spirit of truth who will testify on Jesus’ behalf.” In the first reading we hear of the founding of the church at Philippi, one of Paul’s favorite communit
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Sunday, May 9, 2010
Acts offers us a description of the first council of the church, called to settle “no small dissension.” Some new Christians wanted Gentile converts to become Jewish first, with circumcision and the keeping of hundreds of laws. How this was settled (15: 3-21) is omitted, unfortunately:
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Saturday May 8, 2010
“I have chosen you out of the world—therefore the world hates you.” We certainly have seen that evidenced in the work and subsequent persecutions of Paul.
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Friday, May 7, 2010
The apostles and elders admit that Paul and Barnabas have risked their lives for Christ, but they are still not trusted, and so they send two men to be sure the message is communicated authentically.
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Thursday, May 6, 2010
Jesus wants us to love so that we may give him joy, and that our “joy may be complete.” Loving and being loved does bring joy, but in the first council of the church, 49 AD? “Much debate.”
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Wednesday May 5, 2010
“My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.” Shouldn’t we disciples bear much fruit?
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Tuesday, May 4, 2010
The reading from Acts is a repeat of Sunday’s reading, but with the opening description of Paul’s stoning, almost to the point of death.
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Monday, May 3, 2010
James whom we celebrate today is not the son of Zebedee, yet is one of the twelve. Notice how Paul understands “apostle.”
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Sunday May 2, 2010
“God opened a door of faith for the Gentiles,” but not before Paul and Barnabas were cast out of the synagogues, sometimes with physical punishment.
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Saturday, May 1, 2010
Here Luke recounts the break which Paul and Barnabas make with the synagogues. They shake the dust from their feet. Luke even claims that the Jews’ contradicting the two constitutes “blasphemy.” Although there are no special readings to celebrate Joseph on this “labor day” around the world, Jesus speaks of his working.
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