Why do some priests at funeral and wedding Masses announce that only Catholics in ‘good standing’ can receive Communion? Sounds pretty judgmental and unchristian to me.
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were a tad preoccupied with issues of "purity." The scribe’s advice to maintain purity was to avoid anything unclean. The scribes set and maintained boundaries. John Shea says “Jesus boldly crosses this boundary of clean and unclean. This boundary had become a division, and the division had lead to exclusion. Jesus represents God’s loving outreach to those whom society, in the name of holiness, had pushed away and whom Jesus, in the name of holiness, draws in.” Jesus is teaching us that the path of love sometimes requires that we cross boundaries.
Saturday, September 28, 2019
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
#178: Wealth
Why do we talk about money so often in church?
The manager in our parable today knows that his job loss will lead to starvation. If something doesn’t change, he is going to die. So, he sizes up his situation and wastes no time executing his sly plan for survival.
While he still has power to make deals with his master’s money, he calls each of the debtors in for a one-on-one meeting. He has each of them acknowledge how much they owe and then has them altar the numbers. It is the manager’s idea, but the debtors change the amount owed in their own handwriting. Now they are partners in crime. The manager has taught them how to cook the books, but they have gone there willingly. When he’s fired, they will welcome him into their homes because if not, he will ‘out them’ to the master.
And Jesus says “his master commended that dishonest manager for acting shrewdly.” And we all say “Whaa?”
The manager in our parable today knows that his job loss will lead to starvation. If something doesn’t change, he is going to die. So, he sizes up his situation and wastes no time executing his sly plan for survival.
While he still has power to make deals with his master’s money, he calls each of the debtors in for a one-on-one meeting. He has each of them acknowledge how much they owe and then has them altar the numbers. It is the manager’s idea, but the debtors change the amount owed in their own handwriting. Now they are partners in crime. The manager has taught them how to cook the books, but they have gone there willingly. When he’s fired, they will welcome him into their homes because if not, he will ‘out them’ to the master.
And Jesus says “his master commended that dishonest manager for acting shrewdly.” And we all say “Whaa?”
Saturday, September 14, 2019
Reflection on the lost sheep/coin, Luke 15:1-32 (Audio & Text)
To LISTEN to this reflection on Luke 15: 1-32 as it was delivered at Mass, please follow this link: http://www.ctredeemer.org/september-15-2019/
The parables we hear today speak to our deep longing for a sense of wholeness and belonging. By God’s design, all of creation is connected in ways that we couldn’t even begin to understand.
Just like a bee is drawn to pollen and a flower turns towards the sun and soaks up the rain, so too we are created by God for relationship. So when we are fragmented or alienated from one another, we suffer and wither.
And yet, a stark division begins this Gospel reading. The tax collectors and sinners on one side - and the Scribes and the Pharisees on the other. Per usual, Jesus doesn’t wag a finger at the sinners, but rather addresses these parables to the religious authorities, who are criticizing Jesus’ choice of dining partners.
One of the keystones of Jesus’ ministry was to eat with those who were labeled by society as unclean. Those who, for the most part, disregarded religion because they were considered outcasts.
Just like a bee is drawn to pollen and a flower turns towards the sun and soaks up the rain, so too we are created by God for relationship. So when we are fragmented or alienated from one another, we suffer and wither.
And yet, a stark division begins this Gospel reading. The tax collectors and sinners on one side - and the Scribes and the Pharisees on the other. Per usual, Jesus doesn’t wag a finger at the sinners, but rather addresses these parables to the religious authorities, who are criticizing Jesus’ choice of dining partners.
One of the keystones of Jesus’ ministry was to eat with those who were labeled by society as unclean. Those who, for the most part, disregarded religion because they were considered outcasts.
Saturday, September 7, 2019
#176 - Tradition
Why am I here today?
I’m Lisa Brown, the Director of Religious Education here at CTR. Part of my job is writing this little column where someone submits a question and I do my best to respond. I made-up this particular question because I suspect many of us are asking it quietly to ourselves at this prickly juncture in our Catholic history.
I’ve only been given 600 words, so let’s cut to the chase - it’s been a rough year for us Catholics. Well, maybe we should say a rough 17 or 70 years given the sexual abuse crisis? Or a rough 1000 years since the Crusades? Well, dang, let’s just call it. We Christians have been a train wreck from day one. So why are we still here?
The late Irish poet John O’Donohue, says “Tradition is to the community what memory is to the individual…it’s a huge naïveté for anyone to believe that a religion, understood as the collective wisdom and the lived spirit experience of a people, is an empty mass. It’s a huge resource! Tradition, like memory, has huge dark passages - within the Christian tradition there are dark zones of complete horror - but there are also zones of great light and immense wells of refreshment and healing.”
This speaks to me. My rose-colored glasses are long gone, but my love for our resilient Catholic family hasn’t waned. We just keep showing up and searching for God in this mess and there is something deeply endearing about this indomitable level of hope; something I find safe and lovely. Yes, we Catholics have a seemingly bottomless font of dysfunction, but what family doesn’t? To leave would be just trading one family’s problems for another. I intimately know MY family’s problems; our language, customs, faults and factions, and I feel that in terms of bringing about change, this awareness is an extremely valuable tool.
I’m Lisa Brown, the Director of Religious Education here at CTR. Part of my job is writing this little column where someone submits a question and I do my best to respond. I made-up this particular question because I suspect many of us are asking it quietly to ourselves at this prickly juncture in our Catholic history.
I’ve only been given 600 words, so let’s cut to the chase - it’s been a rough year for us Catholics. Well, maybe we should say a rough 17 or 70 years given the sexual abuse crisis? Or a rough 1000 years since the Crusades? Well, dang, let’s just call it. We Christians have been a train wreck from day one. So why are we still here?
The late Irish poet John O’Donohue, says “Tradition is to the community what memory is to the individual…it’s a huge naïveté for anyone to believe that a religion, understood as the collective wisdom and the lived spirit experience of a people, is an empty mass. It’s a huge resource! Tradition, like memory, has huge dark passages - within the Christian tradition there are dark zones of complete horror - but there are also zones of great light and immense wells of refreshment and healing.”
This speaks to me. My rose-colored glasses are long gone, but my love for our resilient Catholic family hasn’t waned. We just keep showing up and searching for God in this mess and there is something deeply endearing about this indomitable level of hope; something I find safe and lovely. Yes, we Catholics have a seemingly bottomless font of dysfunction, but what family doesn’t? To leave would be just trading one family’s problems for another. I intimately know MY family’s problems; our language, customs, faults and factions, and I feel that in terms of bringing about change, this awareness is an extremely valuable tool.
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