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Noise to Move Us
“When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind.” “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues… (People) from every nation… gathered in a large crowd… (and) each…
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Revelation: Truth and Peace
In the Book of Revelation, John of Patmos, is reporting on the persecution and violence experienced by early peacemakers. John exhorts them to keep praying and working for peace. John uses symbolic language that includes war images. He begins by writing of a “rider called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages…
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Revelation: Now
In the Book of Revelation, John of Patmos has a vision of a “new earth,” for the “former earth had passed away.” Currently there are persons who misinterpret the book and believe their destructive God will set them in rule over the ‘new earth.’ The rulers will be justified in making ‘former sinners pass…
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Revelation: Mothers
John of Patmos uses the symbol of a lamb in his Revelation writings. He describes a gathering of peaceful people, “a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue (who) stood before… the lamb… who will shepherd them” John is borrowing the lamb symbol from Jesus who uses…
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Revelation: Love
What I did for love moved me far beyond my home in Galilee. I was an itinerant, journeying from one village to the next with my mission to love. So many people touched my life as I touched theirs. Some were hateful, lethally so. But they could not kill my mild Spirit. They could…
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Revelation: Visionaries
The writer of the Book of Revelation, John of Patmos, claims to relay the visions of Jesus, “This is the revelation God gave to Jesus Christ.” John claims Jesus claims to be the “ruler of the kings of earth” who “made us a royal nation.” Jesus’ lived revelation in the Gospel is not that…
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Feast on Spirituality
“On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed.” While it was still dark and there is no light by which Mary could see, she is moved by the Spirit to venture out. Her spirituality,…
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Feast on Spirituality Fast from the Cross
“The soldiers… brought Jesus before Pilate.” “Pilate then summoned the chief priests, the rulers” who “shouted out… Crucify him!” “The soldiers led Jesus away to be executed” on a cross. “When they came to the place called the Skull, the soldiers crucified him.” Jesus lived as a peacemaker, intentionally so. He was not ignorant…
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Feast on Spirituality Fast from Shame
The Old Testament reading describes rulers who judge between unchosen and chosen people. They are proud to receive “honor” from “chosen people” and to shame unchosen people. In the Gospel, the “Scribes and the Pharisees, brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle. They said to…