The Narthex
The 'Tomb Experience' Matters
The practice of cremation clashes with many elements of Christian tradition
By John M. Grondelski | March 18th 2024 2:04 PMI’ve regularly criticized the contemporary Church’s generous toleration of cremation. I’ve voiced many reasons why this indulgence of cremation is wrongheaded, but one reason that I think gets too little attention is the symbolic confusion that cremation generates. Man is a symbolic creature, one who is prone to see, recognize,…
READ FULL BLOG POSTHell-Bent to Kill; Heaven-Sent to Save
Christians don’t save by killing. We save by saving, by giving life
By James Thunder | March 11th 2024 1:54 PMThe story of the three Magi from the East following the star to Jerusalem is told during the Christmas season (Matt. 2:1-18). It is not like the heart-warming aspects of Christ’s birth, with an angel speaking to shepherds and angels singing. Rather, it is a story that ends with weeping…
READ FULL BLOG POSTThe Leprosy-Sin Analogue
And other commentary on Readings for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
By John M. Grondelski | February 12th 2024 1:13 PMThe First Reading and Gospel for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, focus on leprosy. The reading from Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46 (one of the few times that Old Testament book appears in the Lectionary) prescribes procedures for determining if one is a leper and how he was to…
READ FULL BLOG POSTMercy, Humility, & Hell-Fire
Mercy as concern for the other is prominent in Jesus’ Judgment
By John M. Grondelski | November 29th 2023 2:59 PMLast Sunday’s Gospel for the Solemnity of Christ the King is Matthew’s Last Judgment account. I have to admit I’m partial to that text because, prior to the 1969 Calendar Reform that inserted Christ the King as the last Sunday of the liturgical year, there was a kind of eschatological…
READ FULL BLOG POSTGod, Caesar, and Dividing the Renderings Today
What if the people running institutions that presuppose a Supreme Being don’t presuppose Him?
By John M. Grondelski | October 24th 2023 1:53 PMThe November issue of Commentary, a monthly magazine of conservative Jewish thought, features a great essay, “Psalms They Have, But They Know Not.” Rabbi Meir Soloveichik ponders American Biblical ignorance, especially among its “educated,” and its implications. The immediate impetus for his article was an incident last summer on the…
READ FULL BLOG POSTDoing What You Have Learned and Received
Neither Jesus nor Paul tried to 'pastorally adapt' any 'hard teaching'
By John M. Grondelski | October 11th 2023 11:27 AM“Keep on doing what you have learned and received” (Phil 4:9). St. Paul's sage advice, in last Sunday’s Second Reading, seems particularly apt for those gathered in Rome for the Synod on Synodality. In recent weeks, we’ve heard some interesting, some bizarre interpretations of how the Church’s Tradition relates to…
READ FULL BLOG POSTDon’t Take Your Anger to Bed
Anger inflates to seem a lot bigger and more important than it often really is
By John M. Grondelski | September 21st 2023 1:06 PMLast Sunday’s readings focused on the corrosive effect of unjust anger and its ability to choke off -- as in the case of the wicked servant’s debtor, literally -- mercy. There is, of course, the danger of thinking that all anger is always bad. That’s not true. Anger is an…
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