The story of the woman with a chronic hemorrhage, from Luke 8
A recent lectionary reading for Lent featured the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:5-42). As I read the passage, I noticed something about the woman that I hadn’t seen before. I’m struck by the image of Jesus being vulnerable to a vulnerable person, asking her for water.
Growing up, Nicole Martin recalls hearing stories from her great-grandmother, Estelle Cartledge, about helping her husband build a church in Pittsburgh during a time of segregation when women leaders were viewed with suspicion. Her great-grandmother’s response was simple: Do the work in front of you. Let God take care of the rest.
Thirst, that is what African American men and women in the U.S. were feeling in the 1950s and 1960s because of the discrimination and racism that they were experiencing.
The Prophet Isaiah had strong views about political issues of his day, and his words, which Catholics and others who use the Common Lectionary read over the four Sundays of Advent, are impossible to hear without applying them to politics today.
Dressed in a clerical collar and posing no threat, I was shot in the leg with a pepper ball by Illinois State Police while protesting outside the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois, on Nov. 1.
When friends mention some new Christian artwork, movie or novel, I confess my first thought is usually, “I wonder how bad it is.”
It has been called many things — a protest, a movement, a civic awakening — but at its core, the “No Kings” moment in the United States has been something deeper: a moral rebellion against idolatry.
Did you know that the pumpkins we decorate our porches with are a significant contribution to climate change? Landfills are the third greatest producer of methane, and the majority of pumpkins end up in the landfill, rotting into methane and leachate.
