Tag: Jesus
Let he who is without sin….
There was no way the new Pope was going to be anything like the reincarnation of Pope John XXIII, the hero of every liberal Catholic, like me. Any Pope coming out of this College of Cardinals would hold views consistent with the conservative Popes who appointed them, John Paul and Benedict. There would be no daylight on the sexual issues like abortion, birth control and gay marriage. My hope was that the new Pope would balance those views with a great commitment to the poor and disadvantaged. I wanted a Pope who exercised the “preferential option for the poor,” to coin a phrase. I have some hope that I got that. Pope Francis does seem to live by my favorite line in the Bible, “Whatever you did for the least of my brethren, you did for me.” Continue Reading
Away in a Manger
A Real Manger
I sometimes think it’s a mistake to drill into children the Christmas story of Jesus born in a manger in Bethlehem. In a way, we end up trivializing the story because it becomes so familiar by the time the child reaches critical thinking that the story loses all its powerful. You almost have to relearn the enormous implications of this story if you, in fact, believe it. What is says is that the creator of the unimaginably vast universe, of which the earth is but a less than insignificant speck, lowered him of herself to be born as a human on this speck and offered a promise of eternal, joyful life. Of course, the story gets even more improbable as it goes on to Jesus’s actual life. But even the birth story is a bit hard to grasp when considered tabula rasa.
It might be better to work backwards. Imagine there’s a God who cares about us. Now, imagine that this God wants to communicate a certain message to us. Finally, imagine that the message is one of humility and love for the least among us. How would God communicate that message? Continue Reading
