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How a grave becomes a birthplace

Judas wasn’t the only disciple of Christ to kill himself after his master’s death sentence, but he was the only one who didn’t live to testify about it. As Easter Sunday’s readings open, a newly minted version of Peter takes…

Surprise God. Try, at least.

For beings with free will, we of the human race are pretty predictable. This is especially evident in the readings for this Palm Sunday. They indicate that not only did Jesus know what was about to happen to him at…

Redesigned to our Original Specifications

Faithful people are in a constant state of rebirth. That’s one of the themes from this Sunday’s mass readings. Every human being experiences birthing once. For many of us that process concluded with a smack or some other stimulus to…

Reconciling with the Boss

On this fourth Sunday of Lent we celebrate reconciliation. This word has a couple different meanings, but in today’s readings those differences are reconciled. The first meaning is “to restore friendly relations; to coexist in harmony; to make peace.” The…

Who in God’s name are we?

Mankind’s most serious sin is taking the Lord’s name in vain; not so much the GD and JC stuff, but the big I AM. We don’t often appreciate the importance of what saying I AM means. Moses did. Our first…

How the Devil did us a favor

It’s not often that we benefit from the devil’s actions, but this Sunday’s gospel reading shows him doing us a great favor. Indirectly, by trying to goad Jesus into several acts of selfish pride, we actually learn important lessons in prayer. Jesus’…

Gospel Truth according to Marx

After months of exposure to the self-serving hot air rising from some of the people fighting for the U.S. presidency, this Sunday’s mass readings are refreshingly Marxist. Groucho, not Karl. Groucho Marx once resigned his membership from an exclusive Hollywood…

Fear is the Father of Our Sins

We’ll never understand the struggle between love and hate until we also recognize their closest living relatives: wisdom and ignorance. We tend to believe that hate appears in the absence of love, but this Sunday’s mass readings teach us something…