Parish News

Dear People Whom God Loves, AWESOME LOVE – III We are now in a position to see how we can preserve the “awesome” of some previous ideas of God and at the same time remove the fear.  This is the fear that prevents us from experiencing the closeness of God. The scripture tells us that […]

Dear People Whom God Loves, Before we get into how love can be awesome, I want to mention how love can be misunderstood.  Love is gentle, but it always has a toughness to it that seeks what is good for another when things are difficult in a relationship. Gentle and tough. Here is an example […]

Dear People Whom God Loves, All of our images of God limp.  There is no way that we can fully—I would say nearly fully—describe God.  The best of our doctrines and images point to what God is.  That is valuable and necessary, but God is always much more and beyond the best of our doctrines […]

Dear People Whom God Loves, God’s clearest message is communicated through the obscure life of a “criminal” (Jesus of Nazareth). Jesus was born into a family that was of no particular account in a town that was of no particular account. Except for our Scriptures, he is almost unknown in history. His public life was […]

Dear People Whom God Loves, It easily happens to us that sometimes we believe in the truth of our religion and practice the rituals without it deeply changing our lives.  This does not mean that we are bad people or bad Catholics.  But there is so much more. There are two things which help us […]

Dear People Whom God Loves, (Pharisees)  These too were with the Scribes in their encounter with the woman caught in the act of adultery. The Pharisees prided themselves in obeying every tiny prescription of the Mosaic Law.  They looked down on those who were not as “good” as they were.  They separated themselves from those […]

Dear People Whom God Loves, If our rigid mindset will allow us, the Bible will often turn upside down the way we look at life, religion, people, and politics. I would like to begin with a quote from “Unexpected News” by Robert McAfee Brown: •    “religious people are often put down (Scribes, Pharisees, and church […]

Dear People Whom God Loves, Is it not true that in religion and politics we fight with each other instead of having a fruitful discussion?  A civil debate would be better than the antagonism, but is not deep enough.  In a debate we understandably want to win.  This means that we not only express our […]

Dear People Whom God Loves, To begin with, it will be helpful to look at words for “love” in different languages: In Greek, the word agape means giving love.  The word eros means desiring love. In Latin, the word caritas means giving love.  The word amor means desiring love. In English, the problem is that […]