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Breath of the Spirit

Pastoral, Liturgical, Teaching, and Social Justice Moments brought to you by www.DignityUSA.org.

Breath of the Spirit is DignityUSA’s electronic spiritual and liturgical resource for our members and potential members. Nothing can replace your chapter or other faith community, but we hope you will find further support here for integrating your spirituality with your sexuality and all the strands of your life.

We welcome relevant homilies, inspirational writings, social justice opportunities, or theological articles from other sources also — particularly from wise women and men who can help us grow as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) and allied Catholic/Christians. You may volunteer to help with this program or send your comments by e-mailing info@DignityUSA.org ATTN: Breath of the Spirit.

JULY 4, 2010: FOURTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Readings: 
Isaiah 66:10-14
Galatians 6:14-18
Luke 10:1-12

Because of space limits, I couldn’t mention anything last week about the importance of Jerusalem for Luke. At the beginning of chapter 9, the evangelist has Jesus and his disciples begin their long journey to Jerusalem. From that point until Jesus’ triumphant “Palm Sunday” entrance into the capital city, he and his followers are “on the road.”

JUNE 27, 2010: THIRTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Readings: 
I Kings 9:16, 19-21
Galatians 5:1, 13-18
Luke 9:51-62

I often mention in these commentaries that biblical “call narratives” are some of the most important parts of Scripture. The Bible’s original readers presumed they also had been called by Yahweh or Jesus, and were personally interested in the implications of responding to such a unique invitation.

JUNE 20, 2010: TWELFTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Readings: 
Zechariah 12:10-11
Galatians 3:26-29
Luke 9:18-24

When I talk or write about the presence of the risen Jesus among us, I have a problem with pronouns. There’s no such problem when my topic is the historical Jesus. The late Raymond Brown constantly reminded his students and readers that Jesus was “a free, Palestinian Jewish man of the first third of the first century CE.” He was that free, Jewish man between 6 BCE and 3:00PM on Good Friday of the year 3OCE.

JUNE 13, 2010: ELEVENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Readings: 
II Samuel 12:7-10, 13
Galatians 2:16, 19-21
Luke 7:36-8:3

A friend, a student of Fr. Richard Rohr, recently mentioned that the well-known writer and teacher has stopped referring to the period which closes his lectures as the “question and answer” session. He’s now labeling it “question and response” time. His change in words is very significant.

JUNE 6, 2010: THE BODY AND BLOOD OF JESUS

Readings: 
Genesis 14:18-20
I Corinthians 11:23-26
Luke 9: llb-17

One of the questions which arose during our seminary pastoral theology course revolved around the hypothetical case of a priest who walks into a bakery and proclaims, “This is my body!” then immediately strolls across the street into a liquor store and states, “This is my blood!” Would these two sets of words, uttered by a validly ordained priest, transform the bakery bread into the body of Christ, and the liquor store wine into the blood of Christ?

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