Before the age of Covid, the expression was “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” In the age of Covid, the expression is now “what doesn’t kill you, mutates and tries again.”
Changing expressions
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Pilot Mountain NC
Yesterday’s hike with friends Richard Derrenbacher and fellow friar Hugh McSherry. Seven miles, beautiful scenery, and great conversation…and none the worse for wear.
Francis of Assisi and almsgiving
There are many ideas that people hold about what it means to be Franciscan. I was once asked, “Where do you friars keep the animals?” I was living in the Soundview area of the Bronx at the time. The person assumed that our way of life would always be surrounded by furry friends. Later, another person wondered why we were not living out our vow of poverty by spending our day begging for alms? Continue reading
A quick look back
Featured
If you would like to catch up on some recent posts, here is a place where you can easily access some posts you might have missed. I hope it helps… enjoy.
Continue readingIt’s that time again….
I will mostly be offline for 10 days or so… there might be some posts that are scheduled for publishing – so something may pop up. My own good self is taking time off to see friends, go hiking and read. Enjoy your week, be grateful and know the blessings of God.
Holy Ground
“This is the place where spouses wailed, where mothers buckled to the tarmac in grief and where children lifted their teddy bears to see a parent carried off in a flag-covered box.” So wrote Matt Sedensky as the war in Afghanistan comes to it’s end. Perhaps now Dover Air Force Base will no longer be a place where Presidents stand and generals salute as our nation’s military fallen are returned home. It is holy ground, but only a stop on their final passage home.
A Guide to Finding Faith
Ross Douthat, NY Times columnist and a committed Catholic, writes some interesting op-ed pieces – but are often religious essays about faith’s intersection with life lived in an ever secularizing world. In his Sunday essay, he writes:
The resilience of religious theories is matched by the resilience of religious experience. The disenchantment of the modern world is a myth of the intelligentsia: In reality it never happened. Instead, through the whole multicentury process of secularization, the decline of religion’s political power and cultural prestige, people kept right on having near-death experiences and demonic visitations and wild divine encounters. They just lost the religious structures through which those experiences used to be interpreted.
It is a long read, but completely worth your investment of time and thought.
The Wisdom of Generosity
In the well known parable of today’s gospel, the landowner goes out to secure laborers for the harvest. At the end of the day, all laborers are paid the same regardless of the time of day at which their labor began. Some complain that they worked from sunrise, while the ones who only began day’s end are paid the same. This has been a week of teachings on wisdom and riches…. what is today’s lesson?
Eye of the Needle
In today’s gospel we have the famous expression: “Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God” It is a continuation of the encounter with the rich young man of yesterday’s gospel. In other form, the expression also appears in the Jewish Talmud and in Qur’an 7:40: “Indeed, those who deny Our verses and are arrogant toward them – the gates of Heaven will not be opened for them, nor will they enter Paradise until a camel enters into the eye of a needle.” Continue reading
The Wisdom of Riches
Today’s gospel is a familiar one: “Teacher, what good must I do to gain eternal life?” Jesus answers him, citing familiar words from the Commandments. “All of these I have observed. What do I still lack?” Jesus responds: “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor,…” And the young rich man goes away sad as he had many possessions.
If you wish to be “perfect” – something that echos Matthew 5:48: “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” The underlying word translated as “perfect” is the Greek teleios. I am not sure that is the best translation for modern-day English. I would suggest a better understanding would be to use the word “complete.”
friarmusings 