Women's Leadership Fund

Home ›

Breath of the Spirit

Pastoral, Liturgical, Teaching, and Social Justice Moments brought to you by www.DignityUSA.org.

Breath of the Spirit is DignityUSA’s electronic spiritual and liturgical resource for our members and potential members. Nothing can replace your chapter or other faith community, but we hope you will find further support here for integrating your spirituality with your sexuality and all the strands of your life.

We welcome relevant homilies, inspirational writings, social justice opportunities, or theological articles from other sources also — particularly from wise women and men who can help us grow as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) and allied Catholic/Christians. You may volunteer to help with this program or send your comments by e-mailing info@DignityUSA.org ATTN: Breath of the Spirit.

SEPTEMBER 28, 2008: TWENTY-SIXTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Readings: 
Ezekiel 18:25-28
Philippians 2:1-11
Matthew 21:28-32

After teaching Scripture as a Catholic priest for over 40 years, I'm convinced one of the reasons relatively few Catholics are turned on by Scripture springs from a disconnect between what the "official" church expects of us and what our sacred authors expect.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2008: TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Readings: 
Isaiah 55:6-9
Philippians 1:20c-24,27a
Matthew 20:1-16a

We can't properly understand our Christian gospels unless we appreciate how each evangelist takes his community beyond the comfort zone it's already achieved in its faith.

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008: EXALTATION OF THE HOLY CROSS

Readings: 
Numbers 21:4b-9
Philippians 2:6-11
John 3:13-17

Meaningful symbols of faith force us to go deeper into our faith. A good sign always leads us beyond the sign itself. And especially when it’s a faith sign, it leads us to explore the contradictions which true faith brings to our life.

The only problem we have with today’s feast is to surface the actual “sign of the cross” which our celebration commemorates. It’s not the symbol which usually pops into our minds when we hear “cross” - the symbol which recently has been mandated to be used in our Roman Catholic churches.

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008: TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Readings: 
Ezekiel 33:7-9
Romans 13:8-10
Matthew 18:15-20

Our biblical authors deliberately choose their words. Before the rise of redaction criticism 50 years ago, translators weren't always too scrupulous in rendering identical terms used in two different passages by the same author in the same way.

Syndicate content