You’re a breath away from being the believer you could be. That is good news! It also requires a sincere act of faith on your part to take in the gift of God-life eternally held out to you. That is proven most powerfully in the "upper room," when Jesus comes to impart his Spirit by breathing on his disciples cowering there.

The first thing to notice about Easter morning is that it’s incredibly busy. If nothing at all happened on the Sabbath that preceded it—from sundown Friday and all day Saturday—now there seems to be a dramatic change in the level of activity.

The Passion story is rich with details, thick with characters, and brimming with dialogues. Everyone in the narrative is faced with the same choice we are: Bow toward God’s authority or bend a knee to their own? The 12 apostles have a dismal record on allegiance. Peter denies, Judas betrays, someone takes a halfhearted swipe with a sword at an unarmed servant before dashing off into hiding.

We can’t redeem a single past hour of disgrace and make it not so, but God can and does redeem all of human history, not with an eraser but by restoring what’s been lost. Dis-grace can only be healed by being re-graced in the healing power of divine forgiveness. We all suffer the disgrace of this woman. As the prophets declare repeatedly, we’re all adulterers, unfaithful to the one who brought us into being. Only those of us who’ve bought the lie of self-righteousness would consider picking up a stone to use against a sister or brother human being. This woman’s fidelity or lack thereof is not our concern. It’s our own faithlessness we should be mortified about and seek to amend.

The father’s compassion offers both children the chance to become unstuck. Younger son needs to come home and wise up. Older son needs to reappraise his superior position in the household and embrace it. The father’s constancy is the key and catalyst for their potential transformation, but they both have to act. If they want things to change, they have to take a few steps in the father’s direction.

We call the great story of faith “salvation history,” but to hear some people tell it, it’s more like damnation history. Blame those convinced that moral depravity is at the soul of every son of Adam and daughter of Eve since Genesis chapter three.

The most crucial thing about mountaintop experiences is to hold onto them and not forget what you’ve seen and recognized. The Eucharist is this kind of elevated view from above: We see Jesus transformed, hear the voice of God speaking to us, commune with patriarchs and prophets, apostles and saints. We discover that time and space and we ourselves are not what we thought. Then we come down and go on our way, possessors of a powerful memory.

You can’t step into the same river twice. That’s because the water never stops moving. The seasons of the church year are like that. You’re tempted to say: Oh, Lent again. But it’s not the same Lent as last year. And you’ll never have this Lent back again in the future.

Young Amanda is concerned. She’s a year past graduation with a degree in social work. She was a fine student in school and is one of the rare recent graduates who landed a job weeks after finishing her college program. She’s earning an adequate salary and is doing what she trained to do and wants to do. In other words, she’s a success, right?

What will your mortal legacy be? If it’s your business to lead troops to military victory or deliver your community from economic hard times, you may earn yourself a statue in the park after you’re gone. If you leave a hefty bequest behind, you may even get your name on a school or library.