Brother Fire

5th Sunday of Lent -- Cycle A Bishop Tony recently showed me one of his favorite books titled: 99 Annoying Attributes of God: Why God is God and You’re Not (by Ray Albrektson, Gary Stanley, and Janet Kobobel Grant). Isn’t THAT the truth! The book is exactly what it sounds like it is -- a list of ways that God annoys us and it has scriptural references to prove the point. I started looking through the book and saw myself in it in so many ways. Here’s one that is so true: “God is annoying because he allows me to struggle and fail at the very things he can accomplish in the twinkling of an eye.” Indeed there are so many examples of that! And of course, it got me thinking about other ways God annoys ME. Here’s one that I came up with: “God is annoying because just when you think you know what God is going to do – God does something totally different.” Today’s Gospel is a perfect example of that. Jesus is away from Judea with the apostles – presumably preachi...

Last week the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith released a pronouncement that those who were baptized with the celebrant using a phrase other than the words: "in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit" must be re-baptized. This pronouncement was in response to questions about the use of other phraseology by protestant & feminist ministers such as "Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier." According to the pronouncement, those who have been baptized by a minister or priest who used such phraseology should be considered unbaptized in the Christian faith. According to the statement that was approved by Pope Benedict XVI (another example of what my friend Ginger calls "creeping infallibility"), Jesus ordered his apostles to baptize Christians "in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit," that any other language does not adequately express the Trinitarian nature of God. I find it disappointing that the Vatica...