When Your Faith Is Put to the Test

When Your Faith Is Put to the Test

Friends, we come now to the Second Sunday of Lent, and we’re on both dangerous and very holy ground with the first reading from the twenty-second chapter of Genesis. The ancient Israelites referred to it as the “Akedah,” which means the “binding”: Abraham binds and is ready to sacrifice Isaac at God’s command. It’s hard to imagine another text in the Old Testament that has stirred up more puzzlement and opposition. I am with Søren Kierkegaard: if you don’t experience “fear and trembling” having read this text, you have not been paying attention. And it’s naming something of absolute centrality in the spiritual life.

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The Invitation Has Been Offered

The Invitation Has Been Offered

Friends, our Gospel today is the parable of the wedding banquet, and like all the parables, it’s kind of unsettling. What we’re meant to see is that this invitation from the king is the greatest invit...

7 Loka 14min

The Peace of Christ

The Peace of Christ

Friends, in our second reading this Sunday, Paul tells the church of Philippi, “Have no anxiety at all.” It’s hard to imagine that Paul—who was shipwrecked many times, beaten within an inch of his lif...

30 Syys 14min

The Hubris of Man, the Humility of God

The Hubris of Man, the Humility of God

Friends, our second reading, a passage from the second chapter of Paul to the Philippians, is one of the master texts in the New Testament. It’s not only ancient and poetic but also substantive; indee...

25 Syys 15min

Love God—Not His Benefits

Love God—Not His Benefits

Friends for this Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, we hear a story from Jesus that tends to bother everybody: the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. We’re meant to hear our own voices in the...

17 Syys 14min

You Belong to the Lord

You Belong to the Lord

Friends, our Gospel for this Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time is the familiar story of Peter asking the Lord how many times he should forgive his brother: “As many as seven times?” Jesus responds...

10 Syys 14min

Will the Good of the Other

Will the Good of the Other

Friends, for the wokeist philosophy that dominates today, empathy—feeling the feelings of the other and not harming those feelings—is treated as a supreme value. But while empathy is perfectly good an...

2 Syys 14min

A Living Sacrifice

A Living Sacrifice

Friends, for this Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, I want to begin with our very brief second reading from Paul to the Romans. It opens, “I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God,...

26 Elo 14min

The Church Prevails

The Church Prevails

Friends, for this Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Church brings us once again, with Jesus and the disciples, to Caesarea Philippi, and to a famous question: “Who do you say that I am?” The m...

19 Elo 14min

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