Drowning in Lemonade

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…