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My husband and I had the pleasure of seeing “Hamilton” on Broadway a couple of weeks ago. It was as amazing as everyone says it is. I am a huge fan of musical theater, but this was so much more than that.

“Hamilton” is history and tragedy and comedy. It was thought-provoking and heart rending and tear jerking. It was magnificent.

As taken as I was with the title character, I must confess that my attention, both when he was on stage and when I left the theater, was most often fixed on General and President George Washington.

I think what struck me as the most notable thing about him was his keen awareness of the duty he had as the first President to get it right. He understood that he could influence a great many future generations on what a great and good leader of the nation should consider…

When Jesus had finished all his words to the people,
he entered Capernaum.
A centurion there had a servant who was ill and about to die,
and he was valuable to him.
When he heard about Jesus, he sent elders of the Jews to him,
asking him to come and save the life of his servant.
They approached Jesus and strongly urged him to come, saying,
“He deserves to have you do this for him,
for he loves our nation and he built the synagogue for us.”
And Jesus went with them,
but when he was only a short distance from the house,
the centurion sent friends to tell him,
“Lord, do not trouble yourself,
for I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof.
Therefore, I did not consider myself worthy to come to you;
but say the word and let my servant be healed.
For I…

Today we celebrate the birth of John the Baptist in the Catholic Church.  The Gospel from Scripture, from Luke, Chapter 1, verses 57-66 and 80, is all about how Elizabeth and Zechariah’s family expect them to name the baby after his father, but mom insists that his name shall be John, which means, “God is gracious.” Of course, initially, no one believes that’s what Zechariah wants to name the child. He, you may recall, was struck dumb by an angel of the Lord for his disbelief that his wife would conceive a child in her advanced age. When he writes “His name is John,” to validate his wife’s objection to what the family wanted, they were all confused. Well, the Bible says they were “amazed.” I wonder if they were amazed because this fine husband sided with his wife against the conventional supposition of the family.

So the child is…

The readings from the Church’s lectionary for the past two days were from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. They both deal with loving our enemies and a “peaceful resistance,” even generosity, toward those who do evil toward us.  Now, these two groups are not always the same. Sometimes we have “enemies” who have not done anything evil. Sometimes we don’t even know our enemies personally so how can we truly hate them? And sometimes we are viewed as an enemy and we don’t know why…

As a woman who has been praying for someone who I’m pretty sure hates me, I am here to tell you that, while I do not believe I’m evil or did anything evil, this person does not see it that way. Sad, but true. Not saying I’m perfect, but I’ve never intentionally caused anyone pain. Even though this person tried really hard to ruin my…

“In the breezy part of the day…” God walked in the Garden of Eden at this time. Not sure when that is, but it makes sense. Spirit is closely linked to ‘wind’ or ‘breath’ in Hebrew. So it makes sense that when the Living God is physically present in the garden, in some sort of visible, even material shape, He would be accompanied by a ‘breeze.’

Jesus breathes on His disciples before He ascends to Heaven to fill them with the very Holy Spirit of God, of Himself. And that breath continues to permeate the Christ followers to this very day and always will.

The thing about a breeze is that we can’t see it, though we can see its effects. Jesus even shares that observation in Scripture. (See John 3:8) And so we are back to the ‘unseen,’ the invisible I talked about in my last blog entry on…

I was honored to be part of the leadership team at a Catholic Military family retreat in S. Korea back in May. At one of my sessions with the adults, I talked to them about having an “elevator speech” at the ready to explain their faith to anyone they might encounter.

In 1 Peter 3:15, he tells us, “Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence…” And, of course, this is great advice! Additionally, from a secular viewpoint, it is a common marketing technique to have that short “elevator speech” ready to share; it’s the nuts and bolts of your company or organization’s product or mission you convey to a potential customer. Why elevator? It’s short enough to share as a parting message with someone as you take the…

When I was in college I sang in a choir that performed an Easter song for our end of semester choral concert. No, it was not a particularly religious choir director/professor, nor was I attending a private, religious school. I learned during my time in the Music Department that musicians will sing a lot of songs of faith without having any belief in God at all.

But as a person of faith I was very pleased to sing a song about Jesus’ resurrection. I can’t recall the title of the song; nor can I recall the composer, unfortunately. I was probably about 19 years old at the time, so please forgive me. What I do remember is that it was a song from the point of view of Mary Magdalene who arrived at the grave of Jesus on the third day to find it empty.

The words were taken directly…

“Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done…” We pray that all the time, if we’re believing Christians.  It’s part of the “Lord’s Prayer” or the “Our Father,” as we Catholics refer to the prayer. It’s vitally important because these are Jesus’ words to His disciples in response to their request that Jesus, “teach us how to pray.”

He also admonishes them not to go on and on with lots of extraneous words. A lot of us who pray extemporaneously could learn from that directive. Too often we try to give God very detailed directions on what He needs to do to take care of our requests to Him. But that’s silly. God knows what we need before we ask. He knows the desires of our hearts.

What we really need to do is say, “Lord, you know what I need and what I want. But I do NOT know what…