Before banks of cameras, intense lights and the gaze of victims of sexual abuse, the bishops of the United States recently debated in Dallas a new policy to “repair the breach” with those damaged at the hands of church ministers. They approved overwhelmingly a Charter for the Protection
“Denying one’s self” is more profound than daily acts of “mortification.” It means displacing one’s self from the center of our consciousness while looking to the true self embodied by Jesus’ teaching.
I learned a lot about being from my cat Goose; I learned also something about how God regards our being, delighting in the work of his hands and the extraordinary beauty of our ordinary lives.
Today’s Gospel and Luke’s whole theology of the Spirit, which will unfold in Acts, is a chronicle of the way God can walk with us in surprising, often unknown ways, reversing our path from fear and disappointment to make of us bearers of the power of the risen one.