Jesus does not urge stoic passivity, which can be a cloak for weakness. He summons us to the kind of active resistance rooted in love that reveals pure strength of character. Anyone can strike back. It doesn't require great strength to retaliate. Jesus’ third way is not for the weak, but exclusively for the meek. …
Changed Hearts Change the World
“Changing the human heart and changing human society are not separate tasks, but are as interconnected as the two beams of the cross.” Henri Nouwen When Jesus moves in he disrupts our personal ethics and replaces them with upside down ones, but he doesn’t stop there. He saves our souls and through us seeks to …
Confronting Compulsive Consuming (Part 3)
"Beat it! The country's full!" Full of what? "Today consumerism determines what is important. Consuming relationships, consuming friendships, consuming religions, consuming, consuming... We have turned our society into a huge multicultural showcase tied only to the tastes of certain 'consumers', while so many others only 'eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table'.” Pope …
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How Jesus Feeds the Hungry (Part 2 of 2)
In Part 1 I introduced some thoughts, based on the familiar story of Jesus’ feeding of the 5000, about what I consider to be his typical way of feeding hungry people. The disciples wanted him to “send them away!” but fortunately he had a better idea, which I believe was more than unique to …
How Jesus Feeds the Hungry (Part 1 of 2)
Besides the resurrection, I bet you don’t know which of Jesus’ miracles made it into all four gospels! OK, my title gave it away, but would you have guessed it if I had called it “Jewish Boy Loses His Lunch” or “Give All You Got and Get More Than You Had” or something of …
