Category Archives: Musings

Clothe yourselves with humility (1 Peter 5:5)

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One afternoon in the synagogue, a rabbi was overcome with rapture and threw himself to the ground proclaiming, “Lord, I am nothing!” Not to be bested, the cantor prostrated himself and exclaimed, “Lord, I am nothing!” The temple handyman, working in the back of the sanctuary, joined the fervor, prostrating himself and crying, “Lord, I am nothing!” Whereupon the rabbi nudged the cantor and whispered, “Look who thinks he’s nothing!”

It can be a very thin line between humility and pride. Continue reading →

Baseball, Easter and the possibility of a nap

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A few days ago I posted an interesting video commentary on Sunday’s gospel. The priest in the video considered the story of “doubting Thomas” with a baseball connection. It started me thinking about faith and baseball. Maybe it is a coincidence of calendars and scheduling; maybe not. But Easter and Eastertide are always right there with the start of major league baseball season. Just saying. Continue reading →

What we carry, what we bring

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Today’s gospel is the well know and wonderfully told account of the two travelers on their way to Emmaus on the later afternoon of that first Easter Sunday. They are on their way home with hopes dashed: the one they thought the Messiah has been executed and is now entombed with the dead. They journey with fear, uncertainty, and a whole range of other emotions and worries. Not unlike us. And Jesus journeys with them. As he does with us. Continue reading →

In the garden

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In today’s gospel, we hear the familiar narrative of the encounter of Mary Magdalene and Jesus later in the morning after the Resurrection. She mistakes Jesus for a gardener. Why a gardener? John writes: “Now in the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been buried.” (Jn 19:41) So, it was natural that the one person who might have been working on site in the early morning, was the gardener. Continue reading →

Easter Sunday in the evening

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This coming Sunday is the 2nd Sunday of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday. The gospel is taken from John 20:19-31, the scene in the Upper Room on the evening of the Resurrection. Our gospel contains the second and third appearances of the risen Jesus in John’s gospel. These three appearances take place in Jerusalem.  There is a fourth and final appearance of Jesus later in a section referred to as the “Epilogue” of John.  This appearance is at the “Sea of Tiberias” in Galilee (John 21). Continue reading →

One short sleep past, we wake…

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“Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so; For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death…. One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more, Death, thou shalt die.” So wrote the 17th century poet John Donne about the freedom from the seemingly unsurpassable power of death and the promise of new life, eternal life at the core of our Easter celebrations. Continue reading →

In the darkness

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There have been many a Good Friday in the course of my life. I have heard the Passion narrative. I led the Passion narrative during Good Friday liturgies. Over the many years of Bible study I have covered the Passion narrative more than a few times. And now thru the gift of my friends Jerry and Maureen, I experienced Good Friday in a way not to ever be forgotten. Continue reading →