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St Stans
Holy is any place that is safe to tell your story. Holy is any place that creates justice.
Category Archive Intro?
Most every week Father Clay writes a letter in the Saint Stan’s Bulletin addressed to “Dear People Whom God Loves.” Sometimes it is information about church activities, but frequently larger issues are examined, expanded and otherwise considered.
Many of us in the parish find both spiritual guidance and world-wise help in these more general letters and feel that they are worth sharing. A brief collection of these letters is presented here and will be updated from time to time.
Dear People Whom God Loves, We now turn to the reign of God is among. I see the word among emphasizing the relationship we have with each other. This of course means that our relationships are gradually becoming more loving. This transformation is greatly influenced by the transformation of truly loving ourselves that we covered …
Dear People Whom God Loves, To continue. The Greek preposition can be translated with by the word among or the word within. I see either translation as emphasizing in different ways what the reign of God is like. Let us start with the reign of God is within. The reign of God is the pervasiveness …
Dear People Whom God Loves, Reflecting and meditating on these words of Jesus can transform us. What I mean is that letting these words sink into us can change the way we think and the way we live. A word of clarification. Either the word kingdom or the word reign can be used. I personally …
Dear People Whom God Loves, To continue. One of the qualities of meditation is a deeper awareness. An awareness of things just as they are. Awareness without judgment. The wonderful thing is that this awareness gradually builds more neurons and synopses in our brain. This allows the prefrontal cortex to have greater influence on the …
Dear People Whom God Loves, We now turn to our journey through the process of integration rather than by will power alone. Remember that our human emotions and impulses come from the two older parts of our brain: the reptilian brain and the mammalian. When we don’t have the newest part of our brain the …
Dear People Whom God Loves, How is will power valuable in this journey? I would put it this way. We need a willingness to look at ourselves honestly and a willingness to grow in this area. Indeed, even here the Love that we name God helps us in this willingness. That is why we call …
Dear People Whom God Loves, Original Sin. G. K Chesterton said that the doctrine of original sin is the only doctrine that is verifiable. That means if we look at human beings, we see difficulties and problems with living well. Something doesn’t seem to work right. Looking at myself and looking around I surely appreciate …
Dear People Whom God Loves, The justice teaching of our church goes back a long way and is currently confirmed by modern papal teachings. When we look at how St. Thomas Aquinas defined justice in the 13th century we can see why our church’s position today does not endorse either socialism or capitalism. Thomas calls …
Dear People Whom God Loves, ONE CHRISTIAN’S STORY Everything starts and ends with God. The way that we image God has a profound influence on the way we live. My image of God has changed through the years. Our images of God all fall far short of what God is, but some images are more …
Dear People Whom God Loves, When we think of heaven as a place, we usually think of it as a place of reward that God gives us because of our good behavior. Heaven in this understanding is something that we earn. It is not a gift. This is the unfortunate tendency that some of us …
Dear People Whom God Loves, When we think of heaven as a place, we usually think of it as a place of reward that God gives us because of our good behavior. Heaven in this understanding is something that we earn. It is not a gift. This is the unfortunate tendency that some of us …
Dear People Whom God Loves, We continue with the shadow and meditation. Difficult as it is for me to acknowledge my shadow, I do find it helpful to pray and ask God to help me see myself as I truly am. I know that this will reveal a lot of ugly stuff. It is good, …