In a one of his sermons, St. Peter Chrysologus states that God would rather be loved than feared, would rather be Father than Lord. Yet if we examine how human beings have related to God throughout human history, we find that more often than not the human race seems to be attempting to appease God's anger rather than to return God's love.
This is certainly true of pagan cults. The...
One drawback to reading the Gospels in pieces is the fact that we tend to lose contact with the developing story. For instance, yesterday and today we will be reading from chapter ten of St. John's Gospel, the chapter that identifies Jesus as the sheep gate and the Good Shepherd. To get the full understanding of chapter ten, we must remember what happened in chapter nine.
Chapter nine of...
And he said, "For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father." (John 6:65)
Jesus said to him, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)
One of the sometimes confusing aspects of St. John's Gospel is what some logicians would call his circular reasoning. The two...
Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life (John 6:47).
Whenever I run into a statement like this, I am startled. Once again I am reminded that St. John's purpose in writing the Gospel was different than that of the other three evangelists. They wrote to "remember" Jesus and his story. St. John's purpose for writing is stated quite clearly: Now Jesus did many other...
The Emmaus story is a story of developing faith. As the two disciples walk home after Passover, their hearts are troubled and downcast. Luke signals this first of all by telling us that they are walking to Emmaus, a town that sat sixty stadia (seven miles) east of Jerusalem. They are, therefore, walking into the darkness as the sun sets in the west.
The disciples themselves freely...