Years ago, a popular song by the band R.E.M. sold a lot of records and won several awards—and caused great parental distress. The song was called “Losing My Religion.” Parents are generally not crazy about the music their kids are into, but in this case their disapproval was rooted in misunderstanding.
The next generation, it seems, will be very good at the task of doing many things at once. They are being raised in an environment of multimedia at home and in school. Their socialization is more multicultural than anything we older folks were exposed to in our ethnocentric upbringing.
Among the most exciting aspects of the Christian story is how failure always leads to the greatest success. The last shall be first, the meek inherit the Earth, the cross morphs into the empty tomb, and the rejection of the gospel by the synagogue opens the doors to the Gentile mission in Asia Minor.
Some things are clearly once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. You see the lovely stranger who plays your heartstrings like a harp, but he or she is walking away. Speak now or forever hold your peace!
Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, which is news to Catholics who have not paid much attention since the year 2000, when Pope John Paul II inaugurated this feast to be celebrated on the Second Sunday of Easter each year.
What do we do with nothing? This may seem like a meaningless question at first. Nothing is a vacuum, an absence, a void. You can’t do anything with nothing.
When someone shouts, “Follow the leader!” most of us know instinctively what to do. We get behind the person who’s ahead of the pack. Generally speaking, the leader is the dominant one, perhaps the fastest or smartest among us, but not necessarily so.
It's kind of amusing, really: Scholars aren’t sure what to do with the woman-caught-in-the-act-of-committing-adultery. It would be helpful, too, if we had a shorter name for her, or could identify her beyond her sin.
“Whoever is in Christ is a new creation,” Saint Paul declares. And for many of us, I have to believe, this comes as pretty good news. Most of us aren’t all that crazy about who we’ve been, the choices we’ve made so far, the myriad ways we’ve managed to betray those who love us and deserve our love.
Preachers may need to be reminded from time to time not to fall into the Luke trap. Many of us have been lulled into thinking that Luke is the warm fuzzy gospel wherein Jesus gives a big group hug to Romans and Samaritans, lepers and tax collectors and prostitutes, not to mention women in general. Luke reveals Jesus in his most liberal and inclusive mood, when everybody and everything is OK by God, right?