Jesus turns to his host, Simon and says, “So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven because she has shown great love.” – and later Jesus tells her that her “sins are forgiven.” When I ponder that short verse in the gospel, I have often pondered it as though it were a chicken and egg question. You know, which comes first love or forgiveness? I think the answer is, it depends.
Scripture is clear that in the relationship between God and us, love comes first. Listen to the words of 1st Letter of John: “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins… We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:10,19) That seems pretty clear. As regards forgiveness, it is there for our asking, because God already and always loves us. Continue reading
Many years ago I received a letter. It was a letter that I wished, snow or rain or heat or gloom of night could have stayed that courier from the swift completion of his appointed rounds. It was a heart-breaking letter from my father, letting me know he had inoperable cancer. “Heart-breaking” is one of the expressions we use invoking the heart. We use expressions such as, “I know that by heart,” we do things “to our hearts content,” and we “cross our hearts” to verify we are telling the truth. Some folks “wear their hearts on their sleeves,” at times are burdened with “a heavy heart,” or blessed with a “heart filled with joy.” Sometimes our “hearts are broken.” It is the poetic expressions that are closer to the heart of the Bible. 
You know it is when it hasn’t rained in a long time and then it does. Not a gully washer of a rain, but just a regular rain. You know the roads can get a little slick when the accumulated road oil comes to the surface. Well that is what happened to this truck driver on a country road. Came around this corner and the tires started to slip a little bit, then a lot, and he skidded right to the ditch. 
When I was in seminary, our homiletics professor had lots of advice and pointers for the Sunday homily – I am about to ignore one of the pieces of advice. The professor was pretty adamant about not explaining theology. And I mostly agree with his point – it can make a homily really dry and fill it with language that needs its own explanation. The professor’s final point was that you are likely to give an inaccurate or heretical version of the theology in any case. 
Memory is an interesting thing. There are many physiological and psychological theories around the topic, but lots of folks seem to agree we have memory for facts and memory for context. Sometimes the memories are general and sometimes explicit. We tie memory to specific events, personal experiences, semantic categories and more. Then whatever the memory, we have to “register” the memory, store it and then recall it. 
Here on this 4th Sunday in Easter, our diocese and the US Bishops’ conference have asked us to speak about vocations to the priestly life. To echo the voice of the Good Shepherd calling those to a life of dedicated service of the community of God – to follow Christ more closely through life as an ordained priest. And to answer this call in troubled times. A time in our life when the church faces questions about a growing worldwide crisis caused by priests and bishops that has continued to flow onto the headlines of the world’s newspaper for almost 15 years now. It is a time when the question lingers on the periphery “Why would anyone want to become or remain Catholic today?” and its more focused parallel: “Why would a man want to become or remain a priest today?” 
What kind of leader do we want? Certainly a good question here in the midst of an election year with the presidential nominations dominating the news cycle. It is always a good question for the Church. I have lived during the pontificates of seven popes and in my lifetime we have certainly had a wide variety of types and styles of leaders. In our history, we have had 266 of popes. We have had some spectacularly amazing leaders, saints in the making, and we have had some spectacularly horrific leaders, who would have been quite at home in Game of Thrones (so I hear, I actually haven’t seen it…). All took up the Keys of Peter, with the same job description given Peter: feed my sheep; tend my lambs. The Pope is the most visible of leaders in the Church, but not the only ones with that same job description. The simple mandate, “feed my sheep; tend my lambs” applies to priests, pastors, parents, principals, police, and anyone who would lead – anyone who would answer the call to minister in the Holy Name of Jesus. 
Easter is coming
My first job after active duty in the Navy was with a technology company in Northern Virginia. Initially I was assigned to work on a project for NavSea 07, the submarine programs office. My first supervisor was a good man named Michael. One day I walked into Mike’s office to ask a technical question. He was at his desk reading and as he stared down at the document on his desk, he was rather oddly turning his head to and fro from side to side. It was almost as though he were trying to read one page with only one eye. I asked him why he was doing that and he looked at me as though I was the harbinger of bad news. “You know everyone has a blind spot, so I was just adjusting to be able to read around my blind spot, but you know….” and his voice trailed off. 
friarmusings 