Cup o' Joe

Readings for the Feast of Pentecost - Acts 2:1-11;  Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13;  John 20:19-23 And so, my friends, we have reached the end.  The end of the podcast only.  For it is only the beginning for what lies ahead.  Today is the great feast of the fusion of God's spirit and humanity - and this spirit which enflames and unifies us, invites us to be authentic to who we...

Readings for the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord - Acts 1:1-11;  Luke 24:46-53 We know the story.  We've heard it dozens of times.  And we know that it ends up ok in the end.  But what about when we apply it to our lives?  What about those moments of anxiety when we are given the keys?  Or the job training is done and we are now expected to know how to do a task?&n...

Readings for the Sixth Sunday of Easter - Acts 15:1-2, 22-29;  Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23;  John 14:23-29 Let's be clear - being a follower of Jesus Christ is not for the weak of heart.  Not just because it could lead to being ostracized or having to make difficult decisions, although both can be true.  Rather, I speak of the gray cloud of unknowing.  Those times when we a...

Readings for the Fifth Sunday of the Easter Season - Acts 14:21-27;  Revelation 21:1-5a;  John 13:31-33a, 34-35 The readings this weekend not only were too good to set one aside, but they all fit together so well.  In the Gospel, Jesus gives us a new commandment - but it's not like a lot of the old one.  Those were pretty cut and dry.  This new one contains a lot of room f...

Readings for the Fourth Sunday in Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday) - Acts 13:14, 43-52;  John 10:27-30 While last week's readings invited us to see differently, this week's readings (on this Good Shepherd Sunday) invite us to hear differently.  Jesus says that His sheep hear his voice and follow him.  Assuming that is still true today, where are those instances that we hear the voice o...

The Gospel for the 3rd Sunday of Easter - John 21:1-19 Yes, this title could easily have been The Reclamation of Peter.  Because really, that's what it's about.  And, of course, if it's about him, it is also about all of us.  Jesus, using Peter, has something to teach us all.  But there's something tucked within the story that can easily be missed if we are not paying attention...

Readings for Divine Mercy Sunday - Acts 5:12-16;  John 20:19-31 How would it feel to you to go around for the rest of your life with an adjective attached to your name that seemed to denigrate you?  I don't think any of us would like that.  And yet we still refer to Thomas as Doubting Thomas.  But really, Thomas wasn't a bad guy at all.  He had courage.  And more impo...

Readings for the Easter Vigil - Romans 6:3-11; Luke 24:1-12 We celebrate the culmination of the Life of Jesus of Nazareth and our own hope this day.  The stone has been rolled away!  The tomb is empty.  We are invited to look in and, like Peter before us, we are amazed!  But what, exactly, does this day mean to and for us?  How are our lives different because of it? &...

Readings for the Feast of Palm Sunday - Isaiah 50:4-7;  Philippians 2:6-11;  Luke 19:28-40 We know the pattern.  And on this Feast of Palm Sunday, this is the one we don't like to hear nor talk about.  But it's half of the Pascal Mystery.  Christ has died.  Now if we were just talking about an historical event, that wouldn't be so hard.  Jesus did it for all of u...

Readings for the 5th Sunday in Lent - Isaiah 43:16-21;  John 8:1-11 You know how some people have a face for radio?  You get to listen to a voice made for silence for a lengthy bit of time today - but, thanks be to God, the readings are worth it.  It can often be easy for us to fall into the trap of seeing God merely as someone who has acted in the past.  In doing so, we miss t...

Readings for the Fourth Sunday (Laetare Sunday) of Lent - Joshua 5:9a, 10-12;  Luke 15:1-3, 11-32 Readings don't get much better than this.  They both focus upon and celebrate God's goodness and presence within our circumstances.  But they also remind us that there is work to do.  There is a journey to take.  We need to come to our senses.  During this 40 day movement...

Readings for the 3rd Sunday in Lent - Exodus 3:1-8a, 13-15;  Luke 13:1-9 Lots of time spent in this podcast on the first reading which is so good.  Moses and the Burning Bush.  Yeah, kind of an important reading - but there is so much there.  Moses thought he was in a place where he couldn't be found.  A bush is burning but not consumed.  Moses makes a conscious decis...

Readings for the Second Sunday of Lent - Genesis 15:5-12; 17-18  Luke 9:28b-36 Most of the time, we go through life asleep.  This is not a put down, it's simply the truth.  We sleep walk through our days, our months, our years, our lives.  But there are those days when the scales fall from our eyes, when we have the wherewithal or the ability to break through the cloud and we a...

Readings for the 1st Sunday of Lent - Deuteronomy 26:4-10;  Luke 4:1-13 We hear the same story every 1st Sunday of Lent, with the only difference being whose version it is.  The story is the Temptation in the Desert and this year, we get Luke's perspective.  And like so many of the Gospel stories, we can read them and think of them merely as stories that happened to Jesus all those...

Readings for the 8th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 1 Corinthians 15:54-58;  Luke 6:39-45 Listen, we all know that death is incredibly difficult and traumatic.  So what, exactly, is Paul talking about in 1 Corinthians and how can he make such a claim?  We then turn once again to the Gospel and Jesus's Sermon on the Plain, where Jesus invites us into another death of sorts.  And wher...

Readings for the 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23;  Luke 6:27-38 The Kingdom of God is not like the kingdoms we create as humans.  And if we try to fit our understanding of God and the teachings of the Kingdom into our current mode of thinking or our current structures, they just won't fit.  And if we force them in, they are no longer the teachings of J...

Readings for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Jeremiah 17:5-8;  Luke 6:17, 20-26 Jesus invites us down to a level place and shares a hard truth with us.  And for many of us listening, it's a time to take a look in the mirror and see which side of the truth we've been living within.  But as with all things God, there is a fork in front of us today and we can choose which road we tak...

Readings for the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8;  Luke 5:1-11 In today's readings, we hear about the call of God.  But, thankfully, it doesn't just focus on the action of God.  It focuses on the ones God calls - their thoughts, their response, how they see themselves and how they see God.  And the more things change, the more they stay the same.  The peop...

Readings for the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord:  Malachi 3:1-4;  Luke 2:22-40 Continuing my shameless ripping off of the titles of famous songs (and this time, my apologies to Bob Seger), we hear a familiar story that sounds so wonderful at first listen.  A couple presents their child in the Temple and people come out of the woodwork to proclaim his title, mission and minist...

Readings for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time - Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10;  Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21 My apologies to Billie Eilish on stealing the name for this title.  But I just had to.  It works too well.  Today we hear about beginnings in the Gospel, and new beginnings in the first reading.  And both take tremendous courage.  It takes courage to own up to our mistake...

Readings for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time - Isaiah 62:1-5;  John 2:1-11 As a Church, we step out of the Privileged Time of Advent and Christmas, and begin this short season of Ordinary Time between now and March 5, when we begin Lent on Ash Wednesday.  And so in this Year C where we hear from Luke's Gospel, what do we hear today?  Out of the Gospel of John, of course.  Ye...

Readings for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord - Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7;  Luke 3:15-16, 21-22; It's odd, right?  Just last week Jesus was an infant receiving gifts from the Magi.  And here he is, all grown up and being baptized.  And we are still in the Christmas season.  How do we put this all together?  I'm glad that you asked.  Because it really all does fit.&n...

Readings for the Feast of Epiphany - Isaiah 60:1-6;  Matthew 2:1-12 We've heard these readings before.  Like family and close friends, they can become so familiar, we don't see or hear them anymore.  We already have them figured out.  But God often comes through the unexpected.  Like Luke, who had the first acknowledgment of Christ's role be proclaimed by shepherds, Matthe...

Gospel Readings for the Feast of the Incarnation of our God (Luke 2:1-14) & the Feast of the Holy Family (Luke 2:41-52) I know - a double shot of the Gospel on this episode.  Couldn't be more appropriate.  This week, we simply marvel in the humble, audacious and bold love of our God.  There is nowhere that God would rather be born this day than in your life and in your circumsta...

Readings for the Fourth Sunday in Advent - Micah 5:1-4a;  Luke 1:39-45 Finally!  Mary takes center stage and Bethlehem is mentioned.  Just not in the way we might think.  The former has to do w/ someone else's birth and the latter w/ a prophecy.  But at least we are getting somewhere.  Just where, however, are we going?  Down.  That's where.  Into small...