Dear Friends, “Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or Sabbaths. These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the reality belongs to Christ.” [Colossians 2.17]
Dear Friends, “He answered, ‘An enemy has done this’. His slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up? But he replied, No…’” [Matthew 13.28-29]
Dear Friends, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life… So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” [Matthew 6. 25; 34]
Dear Friends, “More tortuous than anything else is the human heart, who can understand it.” I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind.” [Jeremiah 17.9-10]
Dear Friends, “Finally, brethren, let your minds be filled with whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, whatever is excellent, whatever is worthy of praise. Do the things that you have learned, received, and heard from me and that you saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.” [Philippians 4.8-9]
Dear Friends, “They strengthened the disciples and encouraged them to persevere in the faith, saying, ‘It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships in order to enter the kingdom of God.’” [Acts 14.22]
Dear Friends, “And all of you should clothe yourselves with humility in your relationships with one another, for ‘God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.’” [1 Peter 5.5]
Dear All, In one sense a relationship is a very intricate and complicated thing – lots of moving parts and changing scenarios over the course of time. But I find it interesting that the Latin word of ‘relationship’ is also the etymological source of our word ‘conversation’: conversation. And conversations are readily classified in four different ways:
Dear All, When I arrived here fourteen years ago, I promised very little; only that whatever I was, for good or ill, I was yours’. Here is another promise. Shortly after the Fourth of July, I will no longer be yours.
Dear All, Obviously, I have been thinking about and writing about the relationship between a priest and his parishioners – or, better, the relationship between the ordained and baptized priests in a parish.
Dear All, If the priesthood of the Baptized is where the saving work of Christ for the world is really carried on, what is the meaning of an ordained/professional priesthood?
Dear All, After fourteen years as the only priest in this area -- the only fulltime religious professional in this area – and so, the only one whose life was expected to be wholly devoted to ‘the sacred’, ‘God’, ‘religion’, ‘parish’, I have come to have some very strong views on how totally wrong this is, how frustrating it is and how deadly it is for parish and church and the individual Christian.
Dear All, I have been thinking a lot about a statement by a theologian named Joseph Ratzinger. He said that societies and cultures early on developed a ‘priestly class’.
Dear All, With the invention of movable type something shifted radically in the wester western world. Because everyone could own a book, everyone could discover truth for himself.