Give us our daily bread. We have prayed both for and against ourselves in the early petitions. We have prayed for the Father’s kingdom against our own. We have prayed for the Father’s will, however much I might prefer my own. It is his kingdom, his will, and we have prayed that it will come and be done so we may know him as our Father. We have prayed against our own will, our own kingdom. We must do this... Read more
Your will be done. We have asked a basic question while working our way through the Our Father: What are we praying for in these petitions? Turns out we have prayed for the Gospel itself. It is only because of the Gospel that we can address God intimately as “Our Father.” We have also prayed that God will bring his Word to us, that he will tell us a story and not just any story but, in a snippet from an... Read more
Your kingdom come. We are looking again at the Our Father, the Lord’s Prayer. So far Jesus has urged us to call the Lord Most High God of Israel “Father” and more particularly, “Our Father.” Right away, Jesus has told us something about the Gospel, the good news of the Father’s unconditional commitment to humanity through Christ. To call God our Father is a summarization of our need and of his abiding promise. In calling on God, we have also asked... Read more
When you pray, say “Father.” The Our Father is an old familiar friend to us. It may have been the first full paragraph any of us ever memorized. This usually was by mimicking the grownups, our child voices trailing a beat behind, piping up on the last syllable. But that’s how we learned it. I also know it may well be the last full paragraph to leave our consciousness. While tending the dying as a pastor, I have seen the... Read more
The Devil was happy he had taken the Dale Carnegie course on How to Win Friends and Influence People and thanks to the sophomore-level marketing class he audited at the local community college, he had found the perfect way to repackage his offers. It was all in the presentation. One must emphasize customer need above all else. Even if humans did pray, “Lead me not into temptation” it was the Devil’s opinion most of them could find it on... Read more
Tuesday, March 19, 2019, 4:28 a.m. Dawn Eden Goldstein (once writing as Dawn Eden) has me up early, a pestering woman. Her book is nagging me. I don’t know why. I have been reading her memoir, Sunday Will Never Be the Same: A Rock and Roll Journalist Opens Her Ears to God, largely without success. I’ve read some of her previous work and I reviewed one of her books. I’m reviewing Sunday. I had expectations. Sunday does not match whatever it was... Read more
Whatever is Jesus doing up in Samaritan hill country? He’s Jewish and Samaritans aren’t. (Jn. 4ff) They had a cordial hatred of each other, Jews and Samaritans. And for the usual reasons: it was religious, doctrinal, cultural, ethnic, political — all of those things. They were kissing cousins, really, but neither strayed near the other’s temple. A stinging criticism of Jesus (Jn. 8:48) from the Pharisees alleged he was a Samaritan, and had a demon. Why stop with one insult... Read more
The Feast of St. Joseph, Guardian of Our Lord, is an orphan solemnity in the Church (discounting Lenten St. Joseph Tables). Not much is made of it, not really. Right now it just hangs around in the middle of Lent, March 19, pretty much as it has since the 15th century. I blame St. Matthew for that. It is Matthew who first introduces us to the man later generations, including our generation, calls the Guardian of Our Lord. After that,... Read more
Theodicy is one of those odd theological words popping up. It is supposed to answer the problem of evil in a creation made by an omnipotent (all-powerful) and omnibenevolent (all-good) God against the clear evidence of evil in the world. It is a philosophical approach seeking to defend God’s providential care against the manifest indications that something is out to get us, and by any objective criterion, it is evil. Why, if God is good, does He allow evil? Why save the baby Jesus and let... Read more
I still remember setting aside the empty paper towel roll for Hattie’s gerbil. Hattie was my then 13-year-old daughter, now headed to 22, and I was under oft-repeated instructions to save the cardboard tube. The little creature enjoyed running through the tube before settling down to chew it up into more bedding. Should you wonder – and I can’t think why you would – we could figure about 20 minutes for the tube from a bathroom tissue roll and maybe 45... Read more
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