Friday Frivolity: Holy Gadgets
Want.
UPDATE: …and on the subject of religious junk, I just read an interesting article entitled Selling Jesus By The Pound. I think it’s worth a read 🙂
Author: pilgrim
Just like you
I came across this video the other day which I thought was rather good:
“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” – Hebrews 12:2
Wise Words On Wednesday
I keep coming across brilliant quotations that simply must be shared with everyone. So with this in mind, from now on, I’m setting aside my Wednesday post to do just that. This week, it’s Grandpa Sheen…
“Hearing a nun’s confession is like being stoned to death with popcorn.”
– Archbishop Fulton Sheen
Sunday Lectionary: Doers of the Word
Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time: September 25th, 2011
The readings this week focus on God’s mercy and exhort us to humility and obedience in following God’s way. There isn’t much technical stuff to deal with in these passages. Instead, these readings are an opportunity for the group to share with one another their struggles in this area and to encourage one another.
“There are two ways, one of life and one of death; but a great difference between the two ways”
– The Didache, c. 65 AD
Reading I: Ezekiel 18:25-28
This section of Ezekiel comes from a longer section entitled “The soul who sins will die” where Ezekiel affirms personal responsibility for one’s own soul and the Prophet outlines all the things that Israel must not do . This long section concludes with the passage below. God affirms that He is indeed just and that, in sinning, it is Israel that is disrupting the right order of things. However, God also affirms that He takes no pleasure in the destruction of sinners. He continually holds out His offer to those who will repent, that he will forgive their sin and spare their life.
Thus says the LORD:
You say, “The LORD’s way is not fair!” Hear now, house of Israel: Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair? When someone virtuous turns away from virtue to commit iniquity, and dies, it is because of the iniquity he committed that he must die. But if he turns from the wickedness he has committed, he does what is right and just, he shall preserve his life; since he has turned away from all the sins that he has committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die.
Possible Questions:
- What is the complaint of the Israelites?
- What is the Lord’s response through Ezekiel?
- How is God’s mercy demonstrated in this passage?
- What is the main exhortation of this Reading?
Three Images of Discernment
Today I would like to return to the topic of discernment.
I concluded my last entry by mentioning the common thread I noticed within virtually all vocation stories. Whether in the priesthood, religious life or married life, I would invariably hear described in each story a personal moment when the discerner began to notice something drawing him or her towards a certain vocation. Sometimes this “something” was a great event, but more usually it was something small, something which an outsider wouldn’t notice or would regard as insignificant.
For some people it was a moment in prayer. For others it was a throwaway comment from a friend or stranger. For yet others, it was the reading of a familiar piece of Scripture, but in a new, personal way. This deep intuition, one awakened, put their life into focus and they began to feel an attraction towards a particular vocation in the same way a magnet is attracted to metal.
Happy “Talk Like A Pirate Day”
I’m so ronery…
I was on retreat this weekend up at Whispering Winds near Julian. On Saturday afternoon we had a men’s session. A question panel was assembled, composed of men from different states in life. We had a priest, a seminarian, a husband and someone in a relationship. Yours truly represented the single life :-D.
With that in mind…
*sigh*…I get so ronery… 😉