A summer ago my family set off on a cross-country car trip from Minnesota to Vancouver B C in part to pick up a wooden bench that my great-grandfather had made when my family immigrated to Canada It was the first thing he built when he arrived As an old man he was too old to work in the fields

Christians read the Old Testament today understandably in light of Christ rsquo s fulfillment of the promises and prophecies found there It is a simple thing to do since the early church read the Old Testament in the context of Jesus rsquo incarnation and teaching and the experience of Easter a

The fulfillment of hope especially divine hope fundamental hope does not rest on intricately calculated human plans in which we chart the future according to algorithms that never vary and on the basis of mathematical certainty await the fulfillment of our calculations Perhaps this works for 40

A reflection by John W. Martens for the Second Sunday in Advent

Pope Francis said on World Environment Day June 5 2013 ldquo We are losing the attitude of wonder contemplation listening to creation nbsp The implications of living in a horizontal manner is that we have moved away from God we no longer read His signs rdquo He was referring to the phys

The correlation of the roles of king and shepherd precedes even the Old Testament Akkadian Babylonian and Sumerian texts including the Code of Hammurabi all invoke the king as shepherd Clearly this association emerges from the pastoral context of the time when sheep- and goat-herding were cent