Wondrous exchange

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – June 28, 2009 – Blessed Sacrament

In our second reading today, from St. Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians, we have one of those lapidary statements that sum up the essence of the Christian Gospel. Paul defines “the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ” in this way: “Though he was rich, he became poor for your sake so that through his poverty you might become rich.” It describes an exchange which is found elsewhere in Paul’s writings and would be echoed and enriched in later Christian writings.

In his Epistle to the Galatians, St. Paul says: “God sent his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as [God’s] children.”

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“God did not make death”

Thirteenth Sunday of the Year – July 2, 2006 – Blessed Sacrament

It is an old practice, encouraged by wise spiritual directors for centuries, that we try to choose from the Scripture readings of a day or a week some phrase, even a single word, that we might use as a focus of our attention and reflection. Monks have practiced this as part of what is called the lectio divina, a slow meditative reading of the Scriptures. If at a certain point in your reading you are struck by a word, an expression, a turn of phrase, then, they tell us, you should stop your reading and pause over the word and start repeating it; if you are alone, in private, they even recommend that you say it out loud. When you can say the word aloud, you have three senses involved: your sight in reading the word; your tongue in pronouncing it; your ear in hearing it. One of the spiritual authors spoke of it as like a cow’s chewing her cud. Cows ruminate, but so do we in reflective moments, when we chew over something in our minds and hearts.

These authors had a profound sense of the providence of God,

The friend of the Bridegroom

Nativity of St. John the Baptist – June 24, 2012 – St. John’s, Goshen

Today we interrupt the regular sequence of the Sundays of Ordinary Time in order to celebrate the feast of the birth of St. John the Baptist. It is unusual for us to do so. Sundays usually out-rank any saint’s feast, and that we do this for John the Baptist is an indication of how high the Church ranks him. For a long time, his was the only birth, apart from that of Christ himself, that was celebrated with a feast day–the feast for the birth of the Blessed Virgin came much later. In this special reverence for the Baptist, of course, we are only following the example of Jesus himself who said of John, “Amen, I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist!” (Mt 11:11).

Congar and Council

I have just returned from Australia where I gave talks at three venues for the launch of the English translation of Yves Congar’s My Journal of the Council, about which more later. While there, I was interviewed on the Council and on Congar by Rachael Kohn for the Australian Broadcasting Company.  You can listen to the interview or read a transcript at: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/spiritofthings/inside-vatican-ii3a-yves-congar27s-diary/4065854