Holy Cross Monastery Sermons (West Park)

"Being heard is one kind of power, and being free is another. We have undervalued women’s speech for so long that we run the risk of overburdening it.". . .

"Our Gospel for today’s feast is Matthew’s version of the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the meek, the poor in spirit, etc.” And the word “blessed” we still apply to saints today, the great exemplary ones—“the Blessed Virgin Mary,” “Blessed James Huntington.” And we get a much better sense of what Jesus was up to with this word if we look at the Aramaic that underlies the New Testament Greek. The w...

"Our God is a God of grace, and does not exclude anyone from the Kingdom. We do it to ourselves. We do it every time we struggle with self-condemnation or question whether we’re enough. We exclude ourselves from God’s grace every time we have to be in control, be right, or have all the answers. We do it every time we carry grudges, anger, or resentment. We do it every time we make judgments a...

In the end the only thing that matters is love.

How different things may have been if enough people had refused to go along with what their government was doing. Just because something is legal does not mean that it’s morally right. And today, we hold in esteem those who risked their lives to resist the Nazi regime as heroes. There were several people who resisted, either behind the scenes or directly.

Jesus often made unusual and uncomfortable comparisons in his parables to challenge the assumptions of his listeners. We are as confused, and surprised by this story, as those who first heard it. We don’t know what to do with those scriptures which reverse the rules as we know them, especially challenging our conceptions about who is in and who is out. The temptation is to ignore them, or explain...