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Get into the ring! How this works...

This is easy! Each week on Thursday I post my homily idea...my main focus for preaching this coming Sunday. What I am hoping for is a reaction from people in the pews. Does my "focus" connect with your daily life, faith, and experience? Or not? Either affirm the direction I am going in (by giving me an example from your life) or challenge me, ask for clarification! Questions are the best! Reaction rather than reflection is what I'm looking for here. Don't be afraid, get in the ring. Ole!



Friday, September 10, 2010

September 12, 2010 - 24th Sunday of the Year

  • the homily from September 5th is in the library ->
  • the scriptures for this coming Sunday are at usccb.org ->
  • I will be presiding at the 8am and 9:30am Mass on Sunday Sept. 12th

Not What We're Used To....

The parables of Jesus in this week's gospel reveal to us the "mind" of God. And it's not what we're used to. In fact, the mind of God is a mind of Grace and our mind (corporately and personally) is so much the mind of the law - the law of the land!

The shepherd and the sheep, the woman and the coin, and the father and his sons are examples of "irrational" behavior based upon the "law of the land". God's way of grace and mercy, compassion and healing, doesn't make sense to the mind of man. Our minds are rooted in what's fair, what's the entitlement, what's my "just desserts". God's mind is "crazy" and irrational in love.

The gospel has to portray God as "over the top" in pursuit of his beloved. In the marriage preparation questionnaire we give identifies a "rose-colored glasses" effect in the engaged couples. No kidding...they are almost all guilty idealistic distortion. They're in love.

God's love and desire for us is this crazy, this irrational, this other-worldly, this "unlike" us. We really would like to create God in our own image, make God the "just and angry God" who is out to get vengence. Not so, says Jesus. He is so different than we are...He is Holy.

Does this impact your religious thinking?

Sunday, September 5, 2010