Temptation

I'm remiss in not posting this homily last weekend.  This is my homily from this past Sunday, March 9th, the first Sunday of Lent, Cycle C.  The readings from last Sunday are here.

Big Farms Breed Big Flu:

Dennis Kucinich is a maverick Democratic politician from Cleveland. He has served as major, representative, and has run for president.  He writes the Kucinich report with his wife. 

Big Farms Breed Big Flu: End the Cage Age for a Healthier, Affordable Path to Food Security

The industry’s reliance on mass culling, vaccines and “biosecurity measures” fails to address the root cause of so many food safety and food security crises: an unnatural, high-stress, squalid system.

Elizabeth Kucinich Mar 11

Pope Francis on the Elderly, i.e. Himself

Commonweal on March 3, 2025, published a brief article

Pope Francis's Preferential Option for the Elderly

by Carmen Nanko-Fernández, professor of Hispanic theology and ministry and director of the Hispanic Theology and Ministry Program at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

On my Lake County Ohio Weal blog, I have published an extensive version of the article which includes summaries of all the hidden links included in the original article. I decide to give it a more popular and less theological title consistent with the original article.

Old Age is Not a Disease

In the new deanery structure of the Diocese of Cleveland, each deanery is to develop a three- year deanery plan with up to three priorities. Those priorities should be things that are best done at the deanery level rather at the parish or diocesan level.

Old Age should be a very good candidate at least for our deanery which includes Lake and Geauga Counties. Most of the parishes are in suburban Lake County with only a few in rural Geauga. The situation of the elderly in Lake County is very different from Cleveland. Geauga is probably much like Lake County except for the rural distance problem.

This Commonweal article provides the perfect Commonweal introduction to the extensive teaching of Pope Francis which the Hispanic author summarized as his preferential option for the elderly.

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However, I am posting it here to open a very different discussion. In all his teaching Pope Francis clearly positions himself as one of the elderly, therefore his teaching applies to himself, and has much to tell us about how he views his present health situation.

Reflection for Ash Wednesday: hypocrisy and authenticity

I gave this reflection late this afternoon at an Ash Wednesday service.  Then I smeared ashes on many foreheads.

The readings for Ash Wednesday are here.  

Catalyst for a Grassroots Spiritual Movement?

During the last several years I have been developing a blog designed to help anyone to discern the place of the Hours in their lives by using a common set of virtual resources just 15 minutes a day. (Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer each take about 15 minutes.) The website emphasizes quality of prayer over quantity, better to do just one Hour or even a part of an Hour than to hurriedly do both. Virtual resources on computers and phones enable us to integrate the Hours with our lives.  The subtitle is praying the Hours anytime anywhere with anyone I use the site when I am doing my morning and evening physical exercises or walking outside in warmer months. 

In November I received an email from the Commonweal website indicating that a person associated with John Carroll wanted to join our CLC. So, I began working on a post to reopen our CLC that would emphasize its grassroots character, i.e. that anyone with a Commonweal subscription can easily start one in their home, parish, local library etc. because the other participants have five free articles per month. I want to get away from notion of a CLC as just for Commonweal subscribers. 

 

Our bishop issued his Pastoral Letter, A Flourishing Apostolic Church on December 17t. We found it on the internet on December 29th, Betty's birthday. I was amazed to find that it is the perfect framework for everything that I am doing and everything that I am asking the local CLC to do, i.e. to form CLCs and try out the Hours in their lives. 

From a Media Interview

“It’s simply a letter about how we can draw closer to Christ, and there is no controversy in that,” Bishop Malesic said. “Let’s just pray 15 minutes a day; join a small group; invite your Catholic neighbors and friends together to have a cup of coffee and talk about ‘Why are you Catholic?’; ‘How can you become a disciple of Jesus?’ 

I think these are the basic things.” 

From the Bishop's Letter

"I invite every Catholic in the Diocese of Cleveland to read this pastoral letter in its entirety, as I have written it with each of you in mind. Make notes and underline your copy of the letter; Consider reading it more than just once. then, meet with some other Catholics who have read this letter and discuss it in a small group. Over the next year I would like this letter to be at the forefront of conversations around the diocese. "

My Post to the Cleveland CLC Blog

Essentially the post contains excerpts from the Bishop's Letter with boxes that provide my commentary and the implications of the letter for CLC members. It is essentially my invitation to them to begin an e-mail or phone conversation with me and others (both members and nonmembers) about the letter. 

In my cover e-mail to them I am inviting them during Lent to spend 15 minutes a day first in studying the letter and my post and then conversing with others about it especially by e-mail. When they have finished that, I am inviting them to try my website for fifteen minutes a day and share their experiences with me especially by e-mail.

Essentially, I am recreating the CLC as an e-mail community. If I get sufficient e-mail data from them on the letter and on the Hours website, I will post that on the CLC which everyone then can use to promote the CLC.

Bishop's Pastoral Letter: Prayer and Small Communities  

Can AI Compose an Authentically Christian Sermon?

Here is a response I got from ChatCPT to questions about AI creating Christian sermons.

If a super-intelligent AI were to exist, it could certainly write a technically proficient Christian sermon. It could analyze thousands of sermons, scripture, theological commentaries, and historical religious debates to produce a sermon that is rhetorically effective, logically sound, and emotionally resonant. But would it be truly Christian? That’s where things get more complicated.

Under the Bus

 

By now we've all heard of the shameful meeting with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump, and JD Vance.  I am linking the story from the AP site (because they also have been cast forth into exterior darkness after refusing to bend the knee). 

Trump's Oval Office thrashing of Zelenskyy shows limits of Western allies' ability to sway US leader | AP News

"The stunning episode in Washington had capped a week of what turned out to be largely futile efforts by U.S. allies to paper over differences between Washington and Kyiv and to try to steer Trump away from his flirtations with Moscow.