Author: Jason King

Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Three Points About Suffering

Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Three Points About Suffering

Posted by | Sep 12, 2018 | , |

Reading 1: Isaiah 50:5-9 Responsorial Psalm:  Psalm 116 Reading 2: James 2: 14-18 Gospel: Mark 8:27-35 In his The Cross and the Lynching Tree, James Cone writes, “Where there is hope, there is God—that divine presence that prevents despair and empowers poor people to resist.” (143).  Cone does not think that this presence of God makes one’s life easy but leads into a life of suffering.  The suffering, though, is not the point.  As Cone continues, “I find nothing redemptive about suffering in itself.  The gospel of Jesus is . . . a story about God’s presence in Jesus’...

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A Printer’s Choice (You Should Read This)

A Printer’s Choice (You Should Read This)

Posted by | Aug 30, 2018 | |

One of my favorite moments in the Lord of the Rings is when Aragorn and Gandalf are marching to the Gates of Mordor.  Sauron so strongly desires the ring that he assumes that everyone else must feel likewise.  He cannot imagine that anyone would try to destroy it, so when Gandalf and Aragorn arrive, Sauron believes exactly what Aragorn and Gandalf hoped he would, that they bear the ring and are challenging his dominion. Sauron empties his troops onto them.  This folly leaves the fields of Gorgoroth vacant and enables Frodo and Sam to move unhindered to Mount Doom. It is...

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Tell me: Why are you still going to Church? Why are you not?

Tell me: Why are you still going to Church? Why are you not?

Posted by | Aug 20, 2018 | |

The drive to church this past Sunday seemed longer than normal.  I live in the Diocese of Greensburg, one of those featured in the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s report on the sexual abuse perpetrated by Catholic priests and covered up by Catholic bishops. Our kids happily – or perhaps more not unhappily – sat in the back of the car.  As we drove, my wife and I talked about how difficult it is to keep going in the wake of yet another sex abuse crisis, another failure of those who are supposed to be leaders in the church.  Priests had...

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Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: Love is the Bread of Life

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: Love is the Bread of Life

Posted by | Aug 8, 2018 | , |

Reading 1:  1 Kings 19:4-8 Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 34 Reading 2: Ephesians 4:30-5:2 Gospel: John 6:41-51 As Christians, we are to “be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us.” When you live in a country where the president regularly insults individual citizens however, it is easy to forget this.  Paul’s call to get rid of our “bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling . . . along with all malice” and be “kind to one another, compassionate” sounds naïve, like a call to give in to the bullies of public discourse.  Yet, this Sunday’s readings...

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Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: The Greater and Deeper Reality is God’s Love

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: The Greater and Deeper Reality is God’s Love

Posted by | Jul 11, 2018 | , |

Reading 1:Amos 7: 12-15 Responsorial Psalm:  Psalm 85 Reading 2: Ephesians 1:3-14 Gospel: Mark 6: 7-13 Every morning, I wake up, pour myself some coffee, and read the news. Lately, this has proven to be a descent into despair.  The international community, the economy, our public discourse, everything seems to be breaking down.  It’s even bad locally.  This morning I read about how a man attempted to burn a gay pride flag.  What was shocking about it was that it did not seem to be any planned endeavor but rather just casual violence, something to do when one is bored...

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