The prodigal stayed away from his Father's house and endured pigpen poverty because he feared his actions had changed his identity from son to slave, only to return and find his fears had no basis in reality. Fear keeps us in a slave mentality and robs us of our very...
The beauty of Christian spirituality is that the God we are in relationship with is for us in Christ. Like the father in the prodigal son story, God is waiting with his eyes looking for us in the distance. He is waiting to embrace us. This image might take some...
Often hell is portrayed as a place of punishment and heaven as a place of reward. But this concept easily leads us to think about God as either a policeman, who tries to catch us when we make a mistake and send us to prison when our mistakes become too big, or a Santa...
There we'll all be, gathered around the banquet table, not just the perfect people but also the other 99.9 percent of humanity. The prodigal son and his hard-partying buddies, the joyful father; the oldest son, and his responsible friends too, they're all there along...
As the parable of the Ten Virgins was about the happiness of the bridegroom at his wedding, so this one is about the ebullience of the lord's joy at throwing his money around. It is the theme of the divine party again, the party that lurks beneath the surface of...
The disciples have now experienced Christ in word (interpreting the Scriptures) and sacrament (the breaking of bread). There is no doubt that Luke is writing not only the story of Jesus but also that of the church which knows him in these ways. The importance of...
The New Testament offers a wealth of images of God. God is not only like a forgiving father, but also like a mother hen longing for her straying offspring and a woman searching until she finds one lost coin. God in Christ is Lady Wisdom, divine Word, the Light of the...
It dawned on me that even my best theological and spiritual formation had not been able to completely free me from a Father God who remained somewhat threatening and somewhat fearsome. All I had learned about the Father’s love had not fully enabled me to let go of an...
As Father, the only authority he claims for himself is the authority of compassion. That authority comes from letting the sins of his children pierce his heart. There is no lust, greed, anger, resentment, jealousy, or vengeance in his lost children that has not caused...