Category Archives: Musings

Patience in a digital age

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Patience is a virtue that’s been vanquished in the digital age. It would be interesting to know if our threshold of annoying things that impede our “getting on with things” has changed over the years. In the 1970s my computer science class developed programs/software on the Dartmouth Time Share system. We carried around boxes of IBM punch cards that took hours to punch. When had to carry them to the data center and submit them…and wait. When the paper punch strip came out that was amazing! This was progress!. Now if my webpage take more than 200 msec. to load, I am annoyed. “Who designed this thing? What’s wrong with our internet connection?” Just some of the inner thoughts that arise when we are impeded.

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Sacrifice and Atonement

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God is on a mission to remove evil from His good world, along with all of its corrosive effects. However, He wants to do it in a way that does not involve removing humans. In this video on sacrifice and atonement, the good people at the Bible Project trace the theme of God’s atoning or “covering” over human evil through animal sacrifices that ultimately point to Jesus and his death and resurrection. The video shows how the Jewish Temple rituals of sacrifice and atonement have been replaced by the New Testament rituals of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. (Note: the video’s will not present a fully Catholic understanding of Baptism or Eucharist, but the trajectory of their narrative points to our fuller understanding of these sacraments.)

As always, if you enjoy these video, I encourage you to support their work and to visit their website for even more great videos – or visit their YouTube channel.

Who are my mother and brothers?

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The reading from today’s gospel (with a few extra verses) and St. Francis of Assisi’s answer to the question.

20 Jesus came with his disciples into the house. Again the crowd gathered, making it impossible for them even to eat. 21 When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” … 31 His mother and his brothers arrived. Standing outside they sent word to him and called him. 32 crowd seated around him told him, “Your mother and your brothers* [and your sisters] are outside asking for you.” 33 But he said to them in reply, “Who are my mother and [my] brothers?” 34 And looking around at those seated in the circle he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. 35[For] whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3) Continue reading →

The Conversion of Paul

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Today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle. It is an event in history that we note in reference to the place it transpired – the Road to Damascus. It is an event that inspired the great Italian artist, Caravaggio to create his masterpiece, The Conversion on the Way to Damascus. The artwork is located in the Cerasi Chapel of the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, in Rome. Across the chapel is a second Caravaggio depicting the Crucifixion of Saint Peter. On the altar between the two is the Assumption of the Virgin Mary by Annibale Carracci.  It is quite the chapel.

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Out of our minds

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In the quiet of the morning, I took a moment to ponder the gospel for today. Today is one of those days I wonder why this particular reading – with its start and end – was chosen. No need to link you to today’s readings online, the gospel is only two verses: “Jesus came with his disciples into the house. Again the crowd gathered, making it impossible for them even to eat. When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.’” (Mark 3:20-21) Of course one could simply open the Bible and pick up the flow of the gospel and understand the context, but… As one who appreciates good story telling, to my mind this is a bit brief.

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A Guilty Conscience

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Today I ran across a practical article on The Franciscan Media site: “Easing a Guilty Conscience” by Dr. Colleen Arnold, MD (a physician, wife, mother and writer from Lexington, Virginia, also holds a master’s degree in pastoral ministry!) Take several minutes and read Dr. Arnold’s insightful words. If you need a “reader’s digest” version to motivate you, she offers that when you are feeling guilty about something – ask yourself four questions:

  1. Is this my problem? “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?” (Mt 7:3).
  2. Did I do my best? “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28).
  3. How can I fix i? “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control” (2 Tm 1:7).
  4. What can I learn from it? “Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer” (Rom 12:12).

Beyond Choice

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Today the Church offers a Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children. Several years ago I came across a well written and thought out post by Julia Smucker. She holds a master’s degree in Systematic Theology from Saint John’s School of Theology in Collegeville, Minnesota. Since being received into the Catholic Church in 2010, she has sought to integrate the gifts of her Mennonite heritage within her newfound ecclesial home. Her commitment to nonviolence has found deep resonance with Catholic teaching on the dignity of all human life.

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Prime Questions

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I have always like numbers. I have always wondered about numbers. Often, we don’t think about them, just using them for their great functional attributes – keeping score, setting goals, etc. But sometimes we should ask how/why numbers are used. For example, why were Levi’s 501s and WD-40 given those names? Levi Strauss lost all of its records in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. It does not know why 501s are so named. WD-40? It was the name from the product development lab: Water Displacement, 40th formula.

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Depending fully on God

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The other day, a friend and colleague forwarded to me an email that she had received containing a wonderful reflection by Fr. John Predmore, S.J., Director of Ignatian Ministries at Boston College High School. The article matched so much of my experience in celebrating the Mass as a priest and in my many years as a lay person at Mass in the years before. A resonance that was only amplified by last week’s leading an RCIA session on “The Mass and Eucharist” during which I talked about full, active, and conscious participation in the Mass. I reached out to Fr. John who graciously gave me permission to post this for your enrichment.

Fr. John wrote: “A deaf priest is part of our Jesuit community and he will say mass for us routinely. Lately as he has been presiding, I have found my mind wandering as I wonder about the mass itself. He is a cheerful guy and very generous, and I am conscious that a life with hearing impairments is certainly a lonely life. I make certain to talk with him each day, I share my homilies with him, and I try to affirm him and tell him that I’m grateful he is with us.”

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