Lorica

We want to live, and to live to the fullest, and if we are not pressing on toward that high calling we will never feel contentment. It is no news to us that this is not easy, that there are many distractions, assaults, and offers of Turkish delight to draw us off course. We must be alert, vigilant, watchful, thoughtful, circumspect, prudent, brave, and courageous to fight the good fight and come o...

The event we celebrate this day runs counter to modern sensibilities- feast of the what? Some may ask. The Roman Catholics discarded it in their liturgical reforms as they got with the times- but we still celebrate, if with a wince, the circumcision of the God Child and Savior of the Human race Jesus Christ. This is in fact the Saviors first shedding of blood in his holy sacrifice for the remissio...

When we are enveloped by the power of God’s love in Christ, by what he has done for us, by our freedom and glory then all of the present sufferings will be as nothing to us. Sure, there are times to mourn and grieve in this life but it never eclipses the deep abiding presence of Joy and Peace because we know, we know deeply and feel the reality that this is all very temporary and will soon pass aw...

Christs first coming which inaugurated the age of perpetual coming, which age we are in, is the age of mercy for sinners. As long as we are in this age, there is still opportunity to respond to the Evite- the call for repentance which is the prerequisite for entry is still being sounded. The door has not been shut, get your oil now- we are in the age of longsuffering. Even though the King of Justi...

The Forerunner prepared the way for the manifestation of the Son of God, for the gospel- for the coming Kingdom. We can think of him like we do the Blessed Virgin. God prepared her from before creation in order to cross the infinite divide and become man, without her fiat there would b no Jesus the Man. God also prepared the Forerunner to prepare the way for Christ to manifest himself and bring th...

I suppose folks just don't want to think about the Judgment, it's so unpleasant and negative, while the birth of the Holy Babe is so sweet and joyful. But this is to misunderstand both the Judgment and the Birth. The Birth in fact begins with the great kenosis, the divine humiliation. Talk about negativity- He crossed the infinite divide, and went down. It then proceeds with the death of the Holy...

Faithfulness is the brass ring, and the thing that we so often lack. And what is critical to achieving this sturdy faithfulness in the Christian life is Knowledge and understanding of the gospel and grace, followed by obedience to what we have learned.

In the last few verses of our reading St. Paul prays that their love may abound. This is a thematic prayer of St. Paul in his epistles. Our love needs to grow and be perfected. We need to love more, and love better. One of the perennial problems we face is sluggishness in spiritual zeal, pulling up short, atrophy, lolly gagging, coasting, half hearted effort, maybe not going in for that sin whole...

The whole point of fasting is to override the fleshly hunger, by ignoring it and turning to your true desire which is for God. But this can only be effectively done if you realize what is actually going on in the process, otherwise you may fall prey to the temptation. The enemy is shrewd and powerful, dangerous and threatening... only to those who are ignorant or blatantly disobedient. To those wh...

When we say He is master and ruler to whom we owe obedience, we do not mean despot. He is a benevolent ruler who has laid down his life for us. As King he defeats our enemy and brings peace to his subjects. He then rders our life in harmonious proportion so that it is a content and beautiful life in the kingdom. He provides nurture and sustenance for his subjects. He feeds us a sumptous banquet. A...

The Parable of the Wedding Feast is really about the uncompromising nature of God, which is just, good, and holy. And if we're going to enjoy the wedding feast with His Son, we must be clothed with goodness and holiness. Simply because darkness has no fellowship with light. Simply, because light destroys the darkness. This is not a moralism. This is just a metaphysical reality: light destroys dark...

Jesus' answer to the lawyer concerning which commandment was greatest does not devalue or dismiss the Law and Prophets. It actually sets them in the highest order. He says that the law and prophets are in fact all about Love. They have been sorely misunderstood and Jesus gives the key which unlocks their true meaning. It is only through the lens of love that you will understand the Law and the Pro...

The context of our existence is time, and the very meaning of our life is revealed in the consecration of time- by making life liturgical. To fully arrive at the sabbath is to be perfected in God. That is the Sabbath over yonder, the Eternal Sabbath post Resurrection. But what is the Sabbath now, on this side? The Sabbath now is a journey to being fully alive, and we pass through times, and season...

We know that Jesus has overcome the power of death, he has restored life and given us a reason to live with hope. And yet he has not removed death from our experience, not yet. He has not removed the stimulus of grief and sorrow and pain in this present life- we still go through it. We still face disappointments and temptation to despair. We can get angry and resentful and accuse God of all kinds...

There may be other ways of diagnosing or describing our problem, but I do think that this one thing that I'm going to share with you is the underlying catalyst for all of it, and that recognizing it in all its forms would be very helpful for us. The thing that I think lies at the root of all our trouble, is a feeling of insecurity. Some might appropriately call it fear, but I think "insecurit...

While all will be raised, not all will be made whole. This is where we come to the second story, "the story of the one grateful leper". This is where Luke zooms in and asks us who we are: are we the one grateful leper? Or are we one of the 9 who has ignored what God and Christ has done for us? Remember, when Luke writes this, he writes this for Christians. It's to remind us of our faith...

He who has ears to hear, let him hear! Hear that as a command. It's not as if He is saying to us that some of you have ears and others don't, so I guess it's just too bad that you can't hear. To us today when He says "he who has ears", he means you. All of us who have received Christ- we have ears, so listen. Listen carefully to the Word of the Lord, as it comes to us in the still, small...

This is our chief work: it is to pray. To cry out to God for help, to offer him thanksgiving and praise. This is what we are to be about. And if anything takes precidence over this, it is idolatry. That's what the primordial sin was, in the garden of eden when they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The essence of our sin, the sin of our parents, was basically to take con...

St Paul is saying to the Church, you need to understand something important here- I don't want you to be unaware. There are not two different people of God, the Nation of Israel and then the Church. There is just one people of God. Israel is the Church and the Church is Israel, now some have been pruned out and others have been grafted in but there is one vine. God's work is of a whole cloth, the...

A true, sacramental Christian marriage is the domestic church. It is the manifestation, between a man and a woman, of the bond of love which exists between the head and the body, between Jesus Christ and his Church. And a marriage, a godly marriage, functions and flourishes according to the same grace that governs how we, as the body of Christ, love our Head, Jesus Christ, in obedience. Authority,...

The steward shrewdly uses mammon to obtain future security once he was cast out of his master's house. He made friends by reducing their debt. So that when he was thrown out he could go to them and they would give him a place to stay in return for the good deed he did for them. Jesus is saying that we should use mammon to make friends so that when we leave this world we will have an eternal home....

What we all want is to see the beauty of the Lord. But we can only see it in a state of holiness, the prophets speak of the beauty of holiness because the prophets were caught up and saw the beauty of the Lord. The pure in heart shall see God, St. John tells us. Our gradual taken from Psalm 34 says: "They had an eye unto him and were enlightened, and their faces were not ashamed". To be...

It is not good for man to be alone- that is a practical and metaphysical declaration that God made clear from the very beginning of our existence. It is not good to be alone- and one can be alone even in a crowd. It is not good to go it alone. it is good to be in the sheepfold among the flock. The enemy of our soul is the divider of the brethren, he plots and schemes as to how he can divide and fr...

There are enemies all around whose sole purpose is to steal our peace by destroying our gentle and tranquil spirit. They have all kinds of tricks and weapons to incite us to anger and agitation. But the truth is, we are our own worst enemies because they can do nothing to us without our cooperation. At the end of the day our enemy does not take our peace away, we give forfeit it. We must not engag...

Someone who fears the Lord is someone who is not playing games with reality. To fear the Lord is to face reality with humility and respect, this is the beginning of Wisdom- We cannot rightly see the truth if we are trapped in the deceit of desire and irrational emotion. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom because it is only after we face the bald truth of things only when we see things as...