Billy Graham once preached a sermon which contained a line something like this: if God doesn’t intervene soon, He’ll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. The sermon then went on to list the sexual sins present in the US. In contrast, when the prophet Isaiah thinks of the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah he… Read More »

To understand Pope John XXIII we must work to understand how things were 60 years ago and learn Italian to read his private journals. Something similar is at work when we read the gospels. The gospel writers were striving to help us to meet Jesus. They were writing two generations or so after his death… Read More »

Have you known anyone who was transfigured? In fiction we can think of the character of Jean Valjean from the book and play Les Miserables. He is a paroled prisoner, embittered and angry at the society that would condemn a man for the crime of trying to help his starving family. The local bishop provides… Read More »

Those of us of a certain age might remember Tommy Smothers accusing his brother: “Mom always liked you best!” If a mother is ever challenged with that accusation she will, inevitably, answer, I love all my children equally. Which is, no doubt, true but on the level of compatibility there might be one child that… Read More »

In preparing a budget you put the expenses on one side and the income on the other and hope that the income exceeds the expenses. We can imagine God operating that way — weighing how many good things we have done versus how many bad things and seeing which counts most. The Bible teaches us… Read More »

Jesus used the image of a loving parent to describe the care that God extends toward us. If you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him. When you think about it our parents don’t give us everything we… Read More »

Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. Jesus used the image of Jonah to describe his ministry. The gospel writers (a generation later) interpreted this in different ways. For St. Luke it meant that Jesus was like Jonah preaching the need for repentance.… Read More »

In the book and movie, The Martian, the astronaut stranded on Mars needs to grow food to survive. He has sun, soil, seed, and water. He needs something else — bacteria to break open the nitrogen which the water liberates from the soil. (Happily, his body is full of bacteria!) The prophet tell us that… Read More »

The parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25 should send a shudder down the spine of everyone who is religious. The parable suggests that God is not interested in your prayer life, whether you are baptized or not, how many prayers you say, if you go to Church, the commandments you keep,… Read More »

A book by C.S.Lewis entitled The Screwtape Letters purports to be a series of letters of advice by an experienced devil to a young tempter on how to get someone to sin. Since the senior devil, Screwtape, is more important in the lowerarchy (as opposed to the hierarchy) he attempts to guide the younger demon… Read More »