Censings

THIRTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME  YEAR B October 25, 2015 Saint Cecilia Catholic Community Rev. Dcn. David Justin Lynch Jeremiah 31:7-9 Psalm 126:1-6 Hebrews 5:1-6 Mark 10:46-52 + In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.        When my wife, Beeper, and I sit in front of the television watching a baseball game or the news, which is most of what we watch together, one of us may want to change the channel and asks, “Where is the remote?” We look around for it on the sofa, the table in front of the sofa, and on the floor, and usually find it right away. But for those few minutes we are looking for it, we are blind to its existence, even though it might be in plain sight. That’s a kind of blindness.        I will admit to being blindly in love with Beeper when I met her. I was definitely not objective. The first day I saw Beeper, her beauty truly overwhelmed me. I purposef...

TWENTY-NINTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – YEAR B October 18, 2015 Saint Cecilia Catholic Community Rev. Dcn. David Justin Lynch Isaiah 53:10-11 Psalm 33:4-5;19-22 Hebrews 4:14-16 Mark 10:35-45        + In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.        Those of us who become clergy do so for a variety of reasons. We are human. We are sinners. Because of that, not unexpectedly, some of us seek a career in the church for the very human motivations of wealth, fame and power. We follow human instinct when we avoid taking up the cross of Jesus and drinking His cup of suffering.  It is those kinds of clergy to which today’s Gospel reading is addressed.        We can easily see that some are in Church work for the money. They want to get rich. They want to live in nice houses and drive nice cars. But Jesus had other ideas about ministerial compensation. You...

TWENTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – YEAR B October 04, 2015 Saint Cecilia Catholic Community Rev. Dcn. David Justin Lynch Genesis 2:18-24  Hebrews 2:9-11 Psalm 128 Mark 10:2-12        + In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.        This week’s lectionary is very tempting for a preacher to condemn divorce and justify the traditional position of the Roman Church that those who divorce and remarry should not receive Holy Communion. It is also very tempting for a preacher to rely on it to justify the continuing subjugation of women and to condemn same-sex marriage as done in the Roman Church and elsewhere. I am not going to “go there” this morning. Using scripture to hit people over the head is not part of my tradition. That’s more like what the Pharisees were doing when they tested Jesus in today’s Gospel, just as they did in the question about whether it is lawful t...