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Just Breathe There’s a sacramental quality to a deep breath. A sacrament combines an earthly element with Divine Truth; visible and invisible elements, to bring the grace of God to bear. And so, with baptism there is the visible water and the invisibility of God’s Word! “Baptism…now saves you…” as Peter writes (1Peter 3.18) The grace of God comes to bear even in those who cannot understand it! The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is designed the same way for…

Rejoice, Always!? (Really, Always!?) It can sound like spiritual hyperbole, can’t it!? God has everything under control. It boggles the imagination – even spurs inclinations of resistance – that horrible injustices, terrorist evils and suffering from painful disease are somehow strangely a part of The Plan in God’s design. It may even fuel doubt and tilt the soul toward unbelief. Even more ghastly is that during any or all of this we might participate in St Paul’s imperative to, “Rejoice…

Rejoicing in the Lord’s Mercy You are Guilty! Did you do it? Is it your irresponsibility that caused this? Did you forget? What are you hiding? You’re lying! You’re not providing the whole story. It’s your fault! You’ll never amount to anything. You’re a failure. Did you cheat? These internally driven and externally experienced accusations (and many more like them) are a part of our daily human existence that wreaks havoc on the soul. Our guilt, either real or perceived,…

Baptism connects us with Christ. We are united with him in his death and when he rose from the dead, we rise with him. That is about as personal a relationship as we can get. Yet there is more. When we are united with Christ, we are also made a part of his body, the Church. We now have brothers and sisters in Christ with whom we will live forever. When Jesus gave his final instructions to his apostles, he…