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- Written by EJ Sweeney
How are you? We ask this question all the time, from the stranger passing us on the street to the people we know best. But most of the time, we don’t really want to know. We don’t want to stop and find out how people are really doing. Most of the time, we expect them to say nothing more than, “Good, thanks. How are you?”, and move on. Most of the time, this question is nothing more than a polite greeting, another way of saying “Hello”. Why? Why don’t we want to know how people are?
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- Written by EJ Sweeney
How can it be? The central claim of Christian faith is that Jesus is God incarnate. God in the flesh. The eternal Son of God in human form. The Second Person of the Trinity made man. The prologue of John’s Gospel declares that: “The Word (who is God) became flesh and made His dwelling among us.” (Jn 1:1, 14) The creed professes Jesus as God from God, Light from Light, True God from true God. But how can it be? How can it be that Jesus is both true God and true man? Fully human and fully divine?
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- Written by EJ Sweeney
So, this is Advent. The season of preparation for Christmas. The season in which Christians prepare to celebrate Jesus’ birth, God’s coming to earth in the Incarnation two thousand years ago. It’s also the season in which Christians take time out to prepare more intensely for Jesus’ second coming, when He will return at the end of time to consummate all things. And lastly, it’s the season in which Christians prepare our hearts more fully for His coming into our lives day by day, to be more open and attentive to His presence.
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- Written by EJ Sweeney
Last week I talked about how unnatural it is for us to expect that God should love us. Like a wounded child, when we suffer we question His love. We even question His existence. But none of this would be possible if we weren’t wired to expect that reality should be any different than it is. Because nothing in this world tells to expect it to be any different than it is. It’s only because we have a transcendent awareness of His love that we even think to question why we suffer in the first place.
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- Written by EJ Sweeney
When everything in life is right and you’re perfectly happy, have you ever found yourself crying out to the Devil: “My Satan, my Satan, why have you abandoned me? Why are allowing so many good things
to happen to me? Why are allowing me to be so happy?” Probably not. But why not? We do cry out to God this way when we suffer, when we feel overwhelmed by life, when we feel like He’s giving us too
much to handle. Why do we protest to Him why we suffer, but never think to complain when everything is going right?
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- Written by EJ Sweeney
My favorite movie of all time, hands down, is Forrest Gump. I love that movie for so many reasons. But one of the primary reasons is the love story between Forrest and his childhood sweetheart, Jenny. Jenny is his neighbor and the only real friend he has as a kid. Everyone else makes fun of him. From the first moment, Forrest falls in love with her, even though she just thinks of him as a friend.
