https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/angfrayles_scraps/Notes taken from my spiritual (and not so spiritual) diary. hourly12000-01-01T12:00+00:00https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/angfrayles_scraps/513071The first letter of John is the liturgy's Christmas treat. We began reading it during the weekdays following Christmas and will be reading it until the week after Epiphany Sunday, the traditional closing feast of the Christmas season. That the letter is read during Christmas should not be a...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/angfrayles_scraps/503549Why is the Temple's destruction announced first before that of the end of heaven and earth? The answer is to be found in the importance that the Temple has in salvation history. The pattern Heaven and Earth --> Jerusalem --> Temple is the progress that salvation history takes from Genesis to 1...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/angfrayles_scraps/499456I was going through some of my older blogs at the Mystical Geek and I found out that I have quite enough materials for a mystagogy of the baptismal rite. "Mystagogy" is such a big word, but it does reduce to just one idea what we usually talk of us a "running commentary on a liturgical rite." We...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/angfrayles_scraps/493095The last phase of Jesus' journey to Jerusalem contains events and teachings that prepare the disciple for the narration of the entrance into Jerusalem, the brief ministry of Jesus there and his arrest and subsequent suffering and death on the cross. The way of the suffering Messiah is also the...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/angfrayles_scraps/492161The parable of Dives and Lazarus falls under the set of themes that Jesus deals with beginning from Luke 15:1. In short, it is about handling people and wealth. The section began with Jesus' reply to the reaction of the Pharisees to the way he handles people, especially the sinners and the...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/angfrayles_scraps/490698The parable of the Unjust Steward in Luke 16:1-13 confuses a lot of people because of one factor that is assumed by Luke and which a lot of modern day readers do not know: that the unjust steward was praised by his lord for having given a good impression of him to his debtors. In first century...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/angfrayles_scraps/488075There is hardly anything to add to what we know about the parable of the prodigal son, I guess. The parable and its immediate context target="_blank">appears a number of times in the mass lectionary.. Apart from that, the whole season of Lent is arranged in such a way that the faithful would...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/angfrayles_scraps/480283Today's gospel reading is best seen in the light of the readings from the two previous Sundays. Two Sundays ago we read about the one and the many: the one thing necessary as against the many things over which Martha was anxious and troubled. The Lord told her that "Mary has chosen the better...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/angfrayles_scraps/477923I am not a Don Moen fan and I don't mind listening to his music, but this morning I saw the lyrics of "God Will Make A Way" for the first time. I must say that it sent my mind to Isaiah's Book of Consolation. Below is a diagram of the way the song lyrics echo parts of Isaiah Looking at this way...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/angfrayles_scraps/473714In Colossians 1:24-28 Paul posits the thesis of the letter: the gospel as the revelation of the mystery that is Christ. Below is an illustration of how the passage connects with the rest of the letter. The gospel that Paul preaches is the mystery hidden in the past but now made known. It is...