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...

February 3, 2008 – Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle A Zep 2:3, 3:12-13 Ps 146 1 Cor 26-31 Mt 5:1-12 According to the Gospel of Matthew, there were huge crowds listening to Jesus when he gave the Sermon on the Mount. But that hardly accounts for the millions and millions of people who have read the Beatitudes and are familiar with this famous Gospel reading – in some form or another. What I find most interesting about this scripture is that when Jesus was facing the crowds there is so much that he could have said and done during this sermon. Think about it: he had a captive audience. He could have very easily “wowed” us by pulling people from the crowds and healing them. He could have demanded that we worship and venerate him. He could have asked for donations. He could have announced that he was going to die for our sins. He didn’t though. Instead he humbly and quietly shared God’s Word. He was a teacher. And he started with how we are already bl...

In the Catholic world, we will be talking about the Beatitudes in a couple of weeks (4th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle A, 2/3/2008) and I found this profound blog post, American Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, Part 1 from the Justice & Compassion blog. It's a vivid illustration how we Americans have distorted Jesus' message in His name. Please take a look at it and comment. Peace.

Many of the Independent Sacramental Movement (ISM) email groups & blogs have been pretty quiet. I was thinking the other day how it’s been a long time since there has been any talk of unity. But sure enough, it seems that the talk has restarted again. For those of you who are new to the ISM, you may not know that the I ndependent Sacramental Movement (a.k.a. Old Catholicism, Autocephalous Church Movement, Independent Catholicism, Independent Orthodoxy, etc.) in North America is not a church denomination, but rather a group of small churches that are loosely linked by apostolic succession and sacramental theology. While the churches are diverse and indeed independent of each other, most of its clergy have longed for some form of unity with their catholic sisters and brothers. Many have tried to ‘legislate’ unity by forming associations and councils but have failed miserably. It is usually early in the process of forming these associations that theological and ideologica...

An address at the march on Washington, DC for jobs and freedom (Aug 1963): Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed - we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!" And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last, f...

One of my least favorite things about the end of the year are the number of year-end retrospectives that pop-up all over the media. Most of it is centered around celebrities of which I could care less. But this one from http://politicalhumor.about.com tickles my funny bone. Enjoy. Top 10 Bushisms of 2007 The Dumbest Things President Bush Said in 2007 10. "And there is distrust in Washington. I am surprised, frankly, at the amount of distrust that exists in this town. And I'm sorry it's the case, and I'll work hard to try to elevate it." --interview on National Public Radio, Jan. 29, 2007 9. "I fully understand those who say you can't win this thing militarily. That's exactly what the United States military says, that you can't win this military." --on the need for political progress in Iraq, Washington, D.C., Oct. 17, 2007 8. "One of my concerns is that the health care not be as good as it can possibly be." --on ...