“MUST WE GO HUNGRY FIRST?” (Lk 15:1-3, 11-32): 23 February 2008 (Saturday)
I hadn’t really paid much attention to British singer Robbie Williams until someone lent me a DVD of his Knebworth concert. It was a great concert that featured some really profound and provocative songs. At one point, he listened to the millions in the audience sing the words to his song “Feel.” He looked around him self incredulously and broke down.
“WILL I GO TO HELL JUST BECAUSE?” (Lk 16:19-31): 21 February 2008 (Thursday)
The recently reunited three-piece rock band, The Police, had an unforgettably haunting song called “Wrapped Around Your Finger” with an even more haunting music video . The painstakingly shot video featured its lead vocalist Sting performing the song amidst a thousand lighted candles.
The song tells the story of a sorcerer’s apprentice, and it uses the ring as a metaphor to express how the apprentice is initially “wrapped around [the sorcerer’s] finger.” In the end, however, he ends up controlling his master, so that it is now his master who is wrapped around his finger.
“WOULD YOU GIVE UP YOUR THRONE?” (Mt 20:17-28): 20 February 2008 (Wednesday)
I recently saw “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” starring Cate Blanchett, a sequel to her 1998 film. Although like the first, it struck me as a bit too anti-Catholic and anti-Jesuit, the movie nevertheless offered a moving portrait of Elizabeth I, who had to deal with the threat of Spain’s rising power as well as Catholic plots against her life. Central to all these conflicts was her cousin, the Catholic Mary Stuart, whom many Catholics believed to be the rightful queen of England and whom Elizabeth had imprisoned and was forced to execute.
“CAN YOU LET YOUR SHADOW TAKE THE CREDIT?” (Mt 23:1-12): 19 February 2008 (Tueday)
There is an ancient story about a man who was so good that the angels asked God to give him the gift of miracles. God wisely told his angels to ask the man first if that was what he wanted.
So one day the angels visited this holy man and offered him the gift of healing by hands. But the saint—for that was what he was—refused. Then they offered him the gift of converting souls. Once again the good man refused. Finally, they offered him the gift of granting virtues. The good man smiled politely, but again he turned the angels down. The angels insisted that he choose a gift or they would choose one for him.
“CAN WE MODERATE OUR GREED?” (Lk 6:36-38): 18 February 2008 (Monday)
Today our Lord says something that will surely get him fired from Donald Trump’s boardroom in “The Apprentice.” Why? He gives us very bad business advice.
He says, “Good measure pressed down, shaken together, running over, will they pour into the fold of your garment. For the measure you measure with will be measured back to you.”