News - June 2017 RSS Feed

On Thursday afternoon, I was on a flight to Montana, on my way to attend my friend’s Ordination to the Priesthood.

Poor Jeremiah.  Called to be a prophet.  When Jeremiah heard God say that he had been called for this from the womb, it was like being told that his birth certificate named him “trouble-maker-for-life.”  Nothing was ever going to be easy for this man.

I begin with something that may sound like the introduction to some weekly crime show on television. I begin by reminding you that at the heart of what we do here every week, there is a body; there is a broken body: a victim, an innocent victim, whose blood has been shed for us.

Our Archdiocesan Criminal Justice Ministry is partnering with King County Juvenile Court to pilot Restorative Justice Peacemaking Circles as an alternative and community-based way to resolve felony cases. This reduces incarceration, fosters healing for both victims and offenders, and affords a profound opportunity for transformation. This is the Gospel in action and it’s unfolding right here in our own backyard. 

In the time of St. Patrick 1500 years ago, a “lorica” was the Roman armor worn by soldiers to protect the torso—a breastplate.    St. Paul had summoned Christians also to put on armor—spiritual armor— ”to protect against the wiles of the devil and against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, put on the lorica, the  breastplate of righteousness.” (Ephesians 6)

Any preacher who talks about the Trinity for more than two minutes will begin to preach heresy. That’s not because most preachers tend toward the heretical, it’s because it’s just so difficult to speak about the Trinity.

“Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and Rome, Jews and converts, Cretans and Arabs, all heard the apostles speaking in our own tongues of the mighty works of God….” With that beautiful global litany, St. Luke relates the birth of the Era of the Spirit on the first feast of Pentecost.