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 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) 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.
By far, the most important section of today’s Isaiah reading is the line, “. . . The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of Yahweh as water covers the sea.” But the key to appreciating its importance revolves around being aware of the ancient Hebrew meaning of the words “knowledge” or “know.”
Biblical followers of God live in the middle of the tension between what’s actually happening in their lives right now and what they expect to happen in the future.
As far as I can tell, all of us long for peace and tranquility, though few of us are willing to pay the price it costs to actually obtain it.I frequently repeat spiritual author Jack Shea’s insight that the historical Jesus’ ministry revolved around answering just three questions – What do you want... more
Rarely does the future unfold exactly as we plan. There are always unexpected twists and turns, forcing us to deal with situations we never anticipated. This certainly has been the experience of people of faith, especially those committed to becoming other Christs.
We’re so accustomed to thinking and speaking about an afterlife that we can’t imagine people of biblical faith not believing in a hereafter. Yet the vast majority of the authors of the Hebrew Scriptures knew only this life. That’s why their theologies revolve around Yahweh rewarding us for our good... more
On one hand, our sacred authors presume their readers are committed to seeing things other people overlook. But on the other hand, if they actually did see those things, there’d be no need for our authors to write. It’s precisely because people of God don’t always live up to their commitments that... more
Last week’s readings zeroed in on the relationship expected of all people of faith with God. A life based on faith demands we relate with God, not try to control him/her. Today’s gospel passage outlines the first step in building and maintaining such a relationship: honesty.
We have to be careful how we interpret today’s Exodus reading. One of my Catholic grade school teachers once encouraged us to pray with upraised hands, like Moses, if we wanted to make certain God would hear our prayers and grant our requests.
Today’s II Kings reading is one of Scripture’s most significant passages. It not only shows us how Jewish faith changed through the centuries, it also challenges us to live up to the unchanging ideals of that faith. Three points.
According to most scholars of the Christian Scriptures, Luke is the first author to write presuming he and all the members of his community would die natural deaths before Jesus returned in the Parousia. What Jesus’ original disciples believed would be a short interval between his death/... more
Many of us, as children in a fit of anger, once turned to our parents and yelled, “I hate you!” I trust none of us have lost any sleep over such an encounter. We all realize it’s one thing to say those words at the age of three, and another thing to say them at the age of thirty. The words are the... more
Contrary to popular Christian belief, the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures weren’t sent by Yahweh to predict the coming of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. The late Raymond Brown always reminded his students and readers, “There are no Old Testament predictions of Jesus as we know Jesus.” Through... more