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- Written by: John Rae
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1 Chronicles 21:1 states: “Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to count the people of Israel.” This did not go over well with God, and he let David know this. So, in verse 8 David says, “I have sinned greatly by taking this census. Please forgive my guilt for doing this foolish thing.” Previously though, in the book of Exodus, God had commanded Moses to preform a count (census) of the people just before the building of the Tabernacle. What was the difference?
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- Written by: John Rae
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Catholic philosopher Remi Brague makes an interesting observation: “…in Spain, when a cab is for hire and looking for a customer, it has a flag of sorts on which is written “FREE”. For many of our contemporaries the model of what “being free” means is the way in which this cab is “free”. This means that it is empty, that it doesn’t go to any particular place.” In a sense you are indeed “free”, but you don’t have a life. A cab that does nothing more than flying its “FREE” flag will end up not servicing any customers and will go bankrupt. From his “Slow Train Coming” album, the songwriter Bob Dylan writes:
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- Written by: John Rae
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I’d like to look at the story of the Tower of Babel as told in the book of Genesis 11: 1-9 and see what take aways there might be for us in 2023.
“Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11:1–4)
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- Written by: John Rae
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At our Parish, we are encouraged to enter into a culture of invitation. On one level, it’s about welcoming and bringing people into the family of the Church, at a social and interpersonal level. At a deeper level, though, God himself has his own culture of invitation that beckons us to a more private and silent place. In the Old Testament book, The Song of Songs, God is described as a lover who gently woos his beloved into the place of intimacy, the bridal chamber, where the beloved freely and unashamedly unveils herself in his presence. The Christian mystic, Saint Catherina of Siena, longed for the consummation of her mystical marriage to Christ and the pure joy that would ensue from that union.
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- Written by: John Rae
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I grew up in the world of Protestant Evangelicalism and I think that the history of Evangelicalism, in North America can shed some light on the current phenomena called “Wokeism”.
