Month: October 2008

COMPARTMENTALIZING YOUR LIFE (Matthew 22:15-21):  19 October 2008 (Twenty-Ninth  Sunday in Ordinary Time)

Today’s Readings

In today’s Gospel reading, our Lord utters his famous line:  “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and repay to God what belongs to God.”  At first glance, he seems to be proposing a division between our usual lives and our so-called spiritual lives.  Sort of like Sunday Christianity, when people act like Christians only when they go to Sunday services.  As for the rest of the week, they act “normally”–that is, not in any particularly religious or even moral way.

STRAYING INTO THE GUEST LIST (Mt 22:1-14):  12 October 2008 (Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time)

Today’s Readings

In his book What’s So Amazing about Grace? Philip Yancey talks about an interesting article that came out in The Boston Globe back in June 1990.  The article, which was called “A Most Unusual Wedding Party,” tells the story of a wedding—or at least what was supposed to be a wedding.  Everything had been prepared, including the expensive wedding ring.  Months before the wedding, the bride and the groom-to-be planned a great reception.  The couple had gone to the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Boston and painstakingly picked out the menu, the china and silver, and even the flower arrangements that they liked.  The bill came to $13,000, and for something like that, they had to leave a 50% down payment.

COPING WITH REJECTION (Mt 21:33-43):  05 October 2008 (Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time)

Today’s Readings

A TV spot from the “Foundation for A Better Life” tells a sad and familiar story:  A new girl looks tentatively around a crowded school cafeteria, food tray in hand.  After what feels like an eternity, she spots an empty seat and finds the courage to join a group of girls her age.  “Would it be okay if I sat here?” she asks.  All it takes is a look, and the new girl knows:  She is an intruder, an outsider, a leper. The group rises as one and leaves her quite abruptly alone with her food tray.