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When I was teaching at Montrose a decade ago, one wonderful student posed a challenge.   She was smart, accustomed to getting A’s without much work.   In class, she often pulled out a mediocre novel she was reading for fun; asked to come on back to class, she said she had done the reading, and asserted further – accurately – that she was ready to write an excellent essay on the assigned reading.   I didn’t pull rank; I argued.   I said that the first time you read a great book is a good start, but no more than that; subsequent re-reading gets better and better.   Then I said I could offer a new and interesting insight about the same short reading every day for 30 days. Maybe I cheated: I chose the reading from today’s Gospel, the “Magnificat.”   It is a simple and moving song of love, attributed to Mary, the mother of Jesus, when she visits her cousin Elizabeth, and the two pregnant women share insights and joy. Around day 28, I came to class unprepare...

Matriotism!   May I try it? At Mass this morning, the first reading was from Sirach, about his love for Israel.   Fr. Martin asked if we love the Church with the same passion that Sirach had for Israel, or even a fraction of it.   That was his question, which I mangled into ... am I a good matriot?   Do I love Mother Church? I was in a fight recently with a pastor, but my conscience is pretty clear.   I could have and should have done better, but do not think I should have done otherwise.   I’d like to restore peace, especially since the long-range task of protecting children (who are a significant part of the church) from Maurice will be easier, for the next three decades, if Montrose Christian School assumes some responsibility and helps out.   That fight troubles me, but is not evidence of a total failure as a good matriot. In the 1960s, the feminist revolution was taking shape.   In the 1960s, there were still two quite different strand...

There are six specific kinds of service that Jesus mentions with urgency in his remarks about the Last Judgment (Matthew 25:31-46), one part of the Sermon on the Mount.   He says: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome strangers ( xenos : immigrants and other strangers), clothe the naked, visit the sick, and visit the imprisoned: rewards and penalties apply.   Most people who recall the list remember five of the six, passing over the third; of those who do remember the third urgent command, most use well meant but quirky and somewhat misleading translations (“shelter the homeless” or even “harbor the harbourless”).   Getting the third right is fundamental – indispensable – to clear thought about how to follow God in America today.   If you look at the whole passage through the lens of hospitality, focusing on hospitality, there’s much to see.   If you restore the third injunction, it may seem trivial or even meaningless at first: just as you don’...

Some decades ago, Communist leaders in Moscow challenged the May celebrations surrounding Mary by launching a new celebration of workers, International Workers Day.   The Catholic Church pushed back, making today the “Feast of St. Joseph the Worker.” Joseph has a place in some of the central icons or images of Christianity, in art presenting the “Holy Family.”   These icons present some of the Gospel, of course; but they also challenge us to put aspects of human life into right relationship.   For example, the image of the Holy Family can be the beginning of a meditation on three central questions of human life: identity, marriage, and labor.   Jesus, the central figure, challenges us to recognize the immense dignity of each and every person on earth.   Mary invites us to understand what it means to bring a child from God into the world.   Joseph, a carpenter, invites us to see the immense dignity of work, as an expression of the person and not merely a ...