What is faith? One popular notion is that it means believing in spite of all evidence to the contrary, a blind or even irrational approach to reality that makes it hard for educated people to take religion seriously. But the rabbis have something quite different in mind when they discuss faith.
There’s saying and there’s doing,” as Mom used to say. A world of discrepancy often lies between the two. It is easy for us to say, for example: “I’ll clean up my room later,” or “I’ll take the car into the shop tomorrow.” But the follow-through is where we usually get stuck in the trap our words have made.
We speak what we know. We give who we are. This may sound obvious, but it's worth some reflection if we hope to enjoy a satisfying and spiritually meaningful life.
If Christianity had to be boiled down to one word, a leading contender would be unity. We celebrate “one Lord, one faith, one Baptism.” Of the four special marks of the church, the list of “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic” begins with our fundamental oneness.
Among the things I’d like to see in heaven is a debate between the evangelists Matthew and Luke. For two guys in the same line of work, they sure had their differences when it came to telling the story. The scholars offer reasons for the discrepancies: variant sources, audiences, and motivations being among them.
When I try to conjure up an image of God’s faithful servant, I’m afraid the character that comes most readily to mind is Lurch, the butler from the television show The Addams Family.
Nobody ever said being the truth-teller would be easy. Just ask Moses, Jeremiah, Isaiah, or Jonah, all famously reluctant to take the proclamation of God’s word to the people. It’s a hard job and the task of genuine leadership.
One of the bravest and most challenging documents ever to come out of a bishops’ committee is the one on preaching, aptly titled Fulfilled in Your Hearing. Reading it is one of the better ways to prepare your homily for this weekend—or any weekend, for that matter.
What’s in a name? Identity and even destiny—in just about any culture but ours. Certainly in biblical times naming held the authority of creation in it: “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” From this understanding we get Adam, whose name means created from earth, and Eve, mother of all the living.
Who are the future leaders in your community? Invite those younger than 20 to stand in your assembly. These children and teenagers are the hope of the future. They may not seem like leaders at the moment, with roving eyes, poor posture, questionable taste in fashion, and a universal reluctance to be scrutinized by grown-ups.