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Jun 24 2015
A couple of weeks ago my parish priest said another homily on the joy of being adopted children of God. It is a frequent sentiment in the church and a concept older than Christianity itself, and yet these days, whenever I hear it, I find that something about it doesn’t sit right with me. I …
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Apr 17 2015
We are uncertain. Much of the time we are afraid. We endure pain and grieve, mourning for lives unlived. We huddle in rooms that feel safe with our loved ones, and there we thread through our fingers the most precious of our memories and the most fragile of questions. Sometimes we are desperate, sometimes hopeful. …
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Nov 04 2014
Continued from “On serpent and the cross. Part I.” You must admit, one can hardly keep from eisegesis when one is a Christian holding Numbers 21. “Eisegesis” is reading meaning into the text rather than out of it. The authors of the bronze serpent story didn’t have the Christ in mind, but we discern the …
Permanent link to this article: https://onmounthoreb.com/on-serpent-and-cross-part-2/
Aug 04 2014
Last Sunday’s gospel was one of the best known of Jesus’s miracles, one that has crossed the boundary between religious and popular discourse and inspired discussion on compassion and charity as much as the meaning of Sacrament, on a holistic approach to the person—body and soul—as much as the malleability of natural laws. It is …
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Jul 13 2014
Continued from “Living prophethood. Part I: a fire shut up in my bones.” I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the …
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Jun 12 2014
The author of the epistle to the Hebrews was possibly but not probably St. Paul. It was probably but not definitely one of Paul’s friends and disciples in Italy – perhaps, Priscilla or Barnabas or Apollos or even Timothy himself – but, in any case, though the name of the author is most likely lost, …
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Mar 16 2014
This Sunday, we heard the gospel of Transfiguration. It is a beautiful story, rich in imagery and meaning: onto a high mountain—Mt. Tabor, most scholars believe—Jesus takes with him Peter, James, and John. And then… There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the …
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Mar 09 2014
A couple of weeks ago, Alice Herz-Sommer died at the age of 110. She was 39 when, with her family and scores of other Jewish intelligentsia, she was sent to Terezin, to a concentration camp the Nazi regime used to demonstrate their humane treatment of the Jews. Through starvation and the death of her mother …
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Feb 17 2014
This is not my usual kind of essay. It may not be an essay at all, and it’s not even nice. I am writing this because I can’t be the only one who goes through this particular challenge—it must be ubiquitous enough—and I hope (I hope!) that maybe my rather improvisory train of thought could …
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Jul 14 2019
On being a neighbor
July 14, 2019
Today’s Gospel is the parable of the Good Samaritan. Everybody knows it, and if you’re a Christian and happened to go to church today, you most likely also heard a sermon on the subject. And chances are, that sermon included some sort of reference—direct or obscure, scholarly or passionate, reflection on conciliation or call to …
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