Christ’s Story Is Our Story, Too

We often approach Lent as the opportunity for a fresh start, a time to make changes in our lives, to let go of bad habits, to grow spiritually. And we approach it sort of like a liturgical marathon, with the final push to Easter taking place during Holy Week. But Easter is more than a [...]

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“Love one another.” Does it get any more basic?

The Gospel for the 5th Sunday of Easter is almost daunting in its simplicity. Easy to say, hard to do, but absolutely essential. The night before he died, according to John, Jesus gave his disciples a single command: “Love one another.” And in many ways this sums up everything he said and did while he [...]

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Jesus, the Good Shepherd

Perhaps one of the most endearing images in popular religious art is that of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. Children immediately grasp this image, indentifying with the cute lamb held in Jesus’ loving arms. In fact, this image lends its name to a method of religious education called the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. Based [...]

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Jesus, the Apostles and Breakfast on the Beach

Today’s Gospel pulls together themes and echoes of the many stories of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee: the call of the fishermen to be the first disciples, the multiplication of bread and fish to feed the crowds, the miraculous catch of fish, the meal shared with Jesus, the breaking of the bread. These are the [...]

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Happy Earth Day!

It’s a lovely day to celebrate Earth Day. The birds are in full chorus outside my windows (open at last after all the cold and rain we’ve been having) and the rooster was awake around 4 this morning. I live as close to the natural world as I can in the middle of a big [...]

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Making Sense of the Mystery

Happy Easter! The retail world has moved on to other events and is looking to the next holiday, perhaps the Fourth of July. The chocolate rabbits are long gone and we’re tired of eating hard-boiled eggs. But as a faith community we’re just beginning to unpack the mystery of the resurrection. Like any life-changing event, [...]

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The waiting is over!

Sometimes when we put everything we have into anticipating a great event—planning, preparing, hoping, dreaming—the event itself can sometimes seem almost anticlimactic, as though it couldn’t live up to the hype. Brides and grooms have said this of their wedding days, when after months and months of planning every perfect detail, they have little recollection [...]

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