“Stung pride, feeling betrayed, furious, Judas said how he felt. Jesus answered, opaquely as usual, about not being with them and funerals and all. But Judas was angry, and hearing is the first to go in anger. And in his anger and pain and resentment, Satan entered him and ate.”
“Our lives, our suffering, our blindness is endured by God to show his glory. In more modern terms, it is God’s abundant love for his creation, and that includes us, that can weep with Jesus, heal us though the Holy Spirit, wipe away every tear with the Father’s overwhelming balm of Love.”
“That turning, repentance, metanoia has a cost, the cost of recognizing our human sin, of taking up our Cross daily, not only in suffering from injustice and violence, but in knowing in ourselves our need for Christ’s healing grace, his showing us the way to be more loving, more patient, more forgiving, as he was and is.”
“So the Annunciation is about a lot more than the mechanics of bringing Jesus into the world to fulfill Jewish prophecy concerning his lineage… It is the portal into the depth of the mystery, the one which guides our life through the Holy Spirit, the one which promises life eternal for those who embrace the Christ in love and obedience.”
“As the Cross will lead to the Resurrection. We are called to turn, exposing ourselves to the unpleasant, often very painful, vulnerability of our flawed and messy lives. We are called to accept God’s love and mercy.”
“The reading in Matthew is the parable of the sheep and the goats. It summarizes Jesus’ ethical teachings regarding the care for the poor, hungry, victimized. Observing these commandments, or not, is the cut which separates this mixed flock.”
“Lent is an unsettled time, and unsettling time, as well it should be. We are experiencing, or should be, forty days walking to the Cross.”
“There is one point in common. Both Carnival and Lent are about giving the power and agency to the powerless.”
“Jesus can reach us and banish discord and evil, but we have to be open to Scripture and to the breath of the Holy Spirit. We need to practice Jesus’ teaching. We need to live in faith and trust each other, to turn our lives around, to open our hearts, to renew ourselves in these teachings, and offer what we learn with each other.”
“Always the teacher, he wrote catechisms and books at a prodigious rate, trying to spread the Gospel through knowledge and understanding, but primarily through knowing Christ from the Gospels. His translation of Scripture into German, and beautiful German, may I add, was groundbreaking in that now the common person could read and meditate on the actual words.”