We seek out the company of one another, wherever we may be, because we cannot pass the Peace alone. Because the Sacraments are meant to be shared. Because love is communicated in company, with a word, or a gesture, or a look (or a pile of kittens).
“This is our camper’s prayer, be with us, Lord.”
“Tell my disciples (now hiding in a locked room) that you have seen me and what I have told you (Jn 20: 11-18). He makes her move. Makes her spread the word, a word of joy. He eases her pain. In his love he gives her new purpose.”
“There are big things we can talk about, like the migrant crises on the southern border of the USA. But, we already know what is required: Don’t wrong them, love them, show them hospitality. It’s in the Bible. Interestingly, the Bible is silent on the subject of secure borders but it has a lot to say about people who cross them. God is not interested in what we think about it, though, God is interested in what we do.”
“The book of Acts reports instead that the Ethiopian remarked that there was some water and asked what prevented him from being baptized. That made me wonder about whether or not Philip had required a profession of faith, and what is sufficient for us to be baptized now?”
“Macrena loved learning (from accounts, she was a person with a fairly extensive knowledge of the Bible), and she figured out pretty quickly that a wife’s life in those days didn’t leave much time for that. Instead, she announced her decision to consider herself eternally betrothed to Christ, and embarked on a life of prayer and study.”
“One of the most ancient ways of naming the meandering and challenging journey with each other and our Shepherd is conversion, and our nervous avoidance of the term may create more stumbling blocks and unattractiveness than the cost of the shock value.”
“May we welcome Christ in each person who is a stranger to us, as Jesus welcomes the outcast and lost.”
“Dwell in me this day, Lord. Help me to see you in my neighbor. To offer a helping hand, a shoulder to cry on, and a meal to feed a hungry soul.”
“When he raises her up, he is giving her life, the same life breathed into all Creation. When she rises and serves them, this is more than the current understanding of the diaconal role. She is acting in the priestly role of taking the elements of the world and offering them in gratitude back to God.”