5th Sunday of Lent: “I thirst.”

The Fifth Word is only two words.
Much earlier in John’s Gospel we read that the Feast of Booths was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. The feast commemorated the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness after they had been rescued from Egypt, and in their wanderings they knew what it was to be thirsty. [...]

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He pens to his pal

I have been kicking around the idea for a story like this ever since reading Nick Bantock’s beautiful book Griffin & Sabine. I’ve actually got an outline in place and am several chapters ahead. What’s been fun is fleshing out the characters and there story more with each subsequent addition. Plus, you really don’t know for [...]

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She said yes

A poor, ordinary betrothed Jewish girl. A child herself.
 
Unordinary in every way.
 
Gabriel approaches.
 
“Do not be afraid.”
 
(Yeah right.)
 
She was alone. Unprepared.
 
Another woman, alone in the Garden, had been approached by an angel of this world. Her interview had gone badly. Would this one?
 
No.
 
She was not afraid. She trusted. She said yes.
 
“Let it be done to [...]

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4th Sunday of Lent: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Here is the cry of dereliction, the cry of abandonment, from the derelict, the abandoned one. The cry is reported in both Mark and Matthew. The Greek word used suggests that he screamed with a loud cry, “My God, my God, for what reason have you forsaken me?” Why? Why this? It is though something [...]

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Diaper Disciples

Short but true story.
Recently before leaving for the men’s rosary group meeting that I attend I had to pause to change a particularly foul offering from my daughter Sophia. This is the reason God invented clothespins. Not for hanging laundry, but for diapers of this malodorous manner…pinning our nostrils shut while engaging in battle with these toxic [...]

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Scenes from Downtown

Noon Mass at St. Mary’s begins each day at 12:10 and lasts until approximately 12:45. It’s short as those attending are often business professionals who work downtown. I work on the third floor of a building a little over five blocks away. I choose today to walk to St. Mary’s by walking through the skywalks [...]

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3rd Sunday of Lent: “Woman, behold, your son! Son, behold, your mother!”

Jesus emptied himself. Mary emptied herself. St. Paul writes, “Have this mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of [...]

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Moods

“Hello?”
 
“Walker, what’re you doing?” her voice on the other line asked.
 
“Nothin’ much. Watching YouTube vids. Watched Nights In Rodanthe too late last night. Kicked my ass. You?”
 
“Oh Lord, I’ve seen that. I stopped to get the oil changed in the car. Me and the kids are coming to Lincoln to watch my brother’s team.”
 
“Oh yeah, [...]

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2nd Sunday of Lent: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Jesus does not reject any who turn to him. At times we turn to him with little faith, at times with a mix of faith and doubt when we are more sure of the doubt than of the faith. Jesus is not fastidious about the quality of faith. He takes what he can get, so [...]

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Hands, feet

I was reminded tonight of something I have long thought about. That being how much our hands and our feet are connected to life and to what makes us human. To what sets us apart as being in the image of God. Today our parish held the funeral for a little girl who was the [...]

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