Original Goodness

 In the thread on sin, I refer to a book called Original Goodness, written by a Hindu scholar who taught meditation to his American students at Cal.  Since his primary audience was Christian, he used the wisdom teachings and understandings of mystics from several religions, but mostly Christians, in his books. After recalling the provocative title that originally drew me to his book, Original Goodness, I took it off my shelf to read again after 20 or so years.  I knew it was about the beatitudes, but his title implies that he was would offer broad insight into human nature, including sin.  I couldn’t remember how he worked that into his notion of original goodness.  Here are a few excerpts from the introductory chapter.

 Original Goodness by Eknath Easwaran.

Too much about sin?

Every cradle Catholic of a certain age understands what is meant by Catholic guilt. The emphasis on sin - starting with forcing seven year olds to confess their sins to a priest - haunts many Catholics. After Vatican II, most Catholics got fed up and simply stopped worrying about confessing their sins to another human being. I guess they were finally growing up on their own because VII didn’t say much about confession that I can recall. Anyway, most  Catholics finally realized that God  hears us, knows our souls, and our sins, and a human intermediary not only isn’t needed by God, they have often done plenty of harm in those confessional booths. Apparently there is also a lot of mis-information provided to converts  in RCIA programs.

Gratitude from a tennis player

Photo by Andrew Coulter/Reuters at CNN's story:

 https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/12/sport/amanda-anisimova-wimbledon-final-defeat-spt

This past Saturday, Iga Swiatek and Amanda Anisimova (pictured above) played for the Wimbledon's women's singles title.  It was quite one-sided, with Poland's Swiatek defeating the America Anisimova in straight sets, 6-0, 6-0.  

Perhaps more impressive to me than Swiatek's nearly perfect performance was Anisimova's grace under pressure in the post-match interview.  When I watched it, her inclination to graciously thank everyone she could think of (including Swiatek) really impressed me - more than impressed me.  For a 23-year-old person in such a pressure-cooker situation to behave so maturely and with such gratitude makes me think she is a remarkable person.  I've become an Amanda Anisimova fan.  The video of her remarks is here.  If it is helpful, you can turn on closed captioning by hovering your mouse on the video; a CC button appears in the lower-right corner.

I wrote up more background for the match; it's below the break, in case those details interest you.  But the video is what I really want to call your attention to; feel free to skip the rest of the post if you wish.

Do we still have religious freedom?

 On the NCR site today:

California bishops scramble to tend to Catholics feeling 'hunted' by ICE agents | National Catholic Reporter

Whether we still have religious freedom is a legitimate question to ask, if people are in fear of being harassed and arrested at their place of worship.

From the article:

Married former priests

An organization of former priests finds it is no longer needed.

Free to worship

This is my homily for today, Independence Day 2025.  I'm not able to post a link to the readings used today, because the choice of readings are a little (or a lot) complicated.  I'll explain them in a comment (to the best of my understanding) if/when I get a chance.  We ended up using these readings today:

1st reading: Isaiah 57:15-19

Responsorial Psalm: selected verses from Psalm 85

2nd reading: Philippians 4:6

Gospel Acclamation: John 14:27 ("Peace I leave with you, says the Lord, My peace I give you")

Gospel: John 14:23-29.  

Coincidentally, this same Gospel passage was assigned for the 6th Sunday in Easter back on May 25th; I was assigned to preach that day, too, but it was for a children's mass so I geared my homily to the kids (it involved having the kids play a game and it was a little chaotic, so I didn't post anything here; you had to be there to get the full experience of it).   So today I got a second shot at the same text, this time to a mostly-adult congregation.  

At any rate, here is the homily:

Archbishop Wester: the Big Beautiful Bill a "Moral Failure"

Earlier today, Senate Republicans passed a version of the GOP's massive budget-reconciliation legislation, dubbed The Big Beautiful Bill in homage to President Trump.  

The bill represents Trump's signature legislative achievement for this term in office.  It adds or subtracts funding for many areas of public life: taxation, border policy and immigration, military spending, Medicaid, food assistance, clean energy programs, the debt ceiling, and more.

The House had passed its own version of the bill on May 22nd.  The two chambers will now need to cooperate to come up with a reconciled piece of legislation for President Trump to sign.  It's quite possible that Republicans won't meet the July 4th artificial deadline imposed by their leadership, but in my view it is a virtual certainty that they will meet somewhere in the middle, and President Trump will sign whatever they come up with.

In America Magazine, in an article written before today's passage of the Senate version, and the all-night session that preceded it, Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe, NM characterizes the legislation as a "moral failure".  The article's headline: "Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ betrays the poor. The church must oppose it."