“Top dollar for bones,” read the sign in the gas station window. Bones are everywhere, here in the New Mexico desert, and tourists will pay big money for a perfect set of elk horns, or a large skull, or a clattering row of vertebrae. I have loved bones ever since my fifth-grade class cleaned and […]
Good Friday, Holy Saturday; ENTERING THE DARK AND THE SILENCE
Today we enter the darkness. We feel the betrayal of Judas, then stand at a distance with Peter, deny Jesus ourselves. Like Peter, we are afraid. What use is there, for all this suffering? On Good Friday, we enter into it. We stand horrified beside the cross. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” […]
WELCOME TO HOLY WEEK: Palm Sunday and the Passion
This coming week — Holy Week — can be hard. Sunday will be hard, to start, with a good 15 minutes of Gospel reading at mass, plus the procession of palms, and the homily…. Church will be long. And the kids will fidget in their seats while adults pretend not to. Prepare yourself ahead so […]
5th SUNDAY OF LENT: When Times Get Dark: “But God!”
I sat with my grandmother in the hospital toward the end of her life, miserable to think that she would soon be gone. As was typical with her, she was the one comforting me. At 22, I couldn’t imagine life after anybody’s death . . . but she could. “But God, Sarah,” she said. “…but God! No […]
LAETARE SUNDAY: ARE YOU BLIND OR DO YOU SEE?
The first (and last!) horror movie I ever watched was “Wait Until Dark.” I was ten. I will never forget the way Audrey Hepburn, blind and alone in her apartment, evened the score against the men trying to find her by breaking the light bulbs one by one … then her helpless panic when she […]
3rd SUNDAY OF LENT: Thirst and Satisfaction
Lent is making me grumpy. I decided this year to give up more food than I usually do and my stomach and head are not happy. So Sunday’s readings really speak to me: will I be like Israel, complaining in the desert, or will I be like the woman of Samaria who looked to Jesus […]
2nd SUNDAY OF LENT: Are You Carrying a Cross?
The view from the Mount of Transfiguration (if it was, indeed, Mt. Tabor that Jesus was on that day) is spectacular. It’s a long, winding trip to the top. The road today is so narrow and crooked that only small taxi buses or people on foot make the trek. I like to imagine Peter, James, […]
CREATE IN ME A CLEAN HEART: Psalm 51
“You’re the man!” According to the Urban Dictionary, that’s a cool way of saying “you rock!” You’re comparing the person to someone everyone knows is awesome, like Jesus (or Allah, or Buddha, or even Chuck Norris, according to that source!) Somehow I don’t think that’s what the prophet Nathan meant in 2 Samuel 12 when […]
THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT: Reflecting on the Sin of Wrath
This continues a series of reflections on the seven deadly sins, with related scripture for meditation. Begin the series here. Week 4: Psalm 51 — “From the sin of WRATH, O Lord, deliver me…” A lady once tried to rationalize her out-of-control temper to her priest. “It’s no big deal,” she said. “I blow up, and then […]
THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT: Reflecting on the sin of Envy
If you’re reflecting on the seven deadly sins with me, and praying with the Penitential Psalms to overcome them, notice how well this week’s Psalm 38 expresses our experience with envy: “thy arrows have sunk into me” (vs 2); “my wounds grow foul and fester” (vs 5); and “Lord, all my longing is known to […]
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