17th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A, RCL)

To be a follower of the one who promised that the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed is to expect a blessed in-breaking of peace.

The Prodigal Son is often read to mean that God loves sinners, whereas the Jews thought God only loved the righteous. This makes no sense.

Growing in prayer is not simply acquiring a set of special spiritual skills. It is growing into Christian humanity.

I was startled earlier this year when news anchor Peter Mansbridge called someone a Good Samaritan on The National, the flagship nightly newscast of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I was surprised that in our secularized, multifaith society, newswriters assumed that listeners would understand an allusion from the Bible.

On second thought, I was less surprised.

Six words of scripture always transport me to an amazing place: “The kingdom of heaven is like . . .”

The Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is working to infiltrate the whole creation with God's love.

On Sundays, my mother stayed home and read the paper. Yet she insisted that we kids go to church.

When I combined the popular ideas of God in my mind, I ended up with a strange stew—a lover God who would torture me with fire if I stepped out of line and bless me with diamonds if I obeyed. In other words, my image of God had a serious borderline personality disorder.

In 1983, Kenneth Mitchell and Herbert Anderson wrote that "death is only one form of loss." This would have been unthinkable for Christians half a century earlier.

Thomas Merton's conversion to Catholicism is among the most celebrated of the last century. But to which kind of Catholicism did Merton convert?

What are we asking for when we pray for the kingdom of heaven to come?

"I don't know how to do this," I said to the nothingness. The Holy Spirit took it from there.

"Have you understood all this?" They said yes. God must still be laughing.