If I ever write a book it will be entitled The Commandments of Jesus (as distinct from the Ten Commandments.) The first of these commandments would be “Thou shalt not worry” (Matthew 6:25). In our culture if you are not worrying people suspect you are irresponsible. Have you bought insurance yet? Have you brought your… Read More »

When I was in seminary they taught us not to talk about ourselves when we were preaching. Apparently, St. Paul did not get that lesson. “What anyone dares to boast of (I am speaking in foolishness) I also dare.” The Apostle goes on to list all that he has gone through. But he calls this… Read More »

Boys (at least this boy) like to imagine scenarios which test God. “Can God make a rock that even God can’t lift it?” The constant message of the Bible is that God is all-powerful, that God is the one who acts, that God is in control. EXCEPT… According to the teaching of Jesus the one… Read More »

When St. Paul recalled that at the Council of Jerusalem where the early Jesus movement decided to welcome Gentiles as well as Jews he was ordered to remember the poor, “the one thing I was anxious to do.” In several of his letters we find evidence of the efforts he made to take up a… Read More »

“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” The idea of being perfect is daunting. We’ve already blown it and can never be perfect. But the word Jesus uses does not carry the weight the English word does but more like “be complete.” Maybe one way to understand it: be the person you… Read More »

My ordination class choose as our theme this thought from St. Paul: “In everything we commend ourselves as ministers of God … in the Holy Spirit, in unfeigned love, in truthful speech, in the power of God.” Looking back over the 43 years since then that sentiment has served as a guiding light. If I… Read More »

Imagine this: there is a monk who gets up in the middle of the night to pray. He lights his lamp and sits alone in the dark with God. The next day he spends in silence thinking about God the whole time. He fasts because he wants to become completely dependent on God. When he… Read More »

“The love of Christ impels us… so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him.” In our psychologizing age the idea of “personal fulfillment” has a high priority. St. Paul says “all have died” in Christ so there is no need to fill oneself but rather to empty oneself in… Read More »

“We hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us.” At certain ceremonies the performer or athlete on receiving their award will say, “First of all, I want to give God the glory…” While that is not a bad thing to say in itself you kind… Read More »

The next few weeks of “ordinary time” the first reading will be taken from Paul’s second letter to the Church in Corinth. Corinth was Paul’s problem child and, despite that?, because of that?, he had a special affection for them. The Apostle kept stressing with them that they were made for more than a sinful… Read More »