• Easter: 4th Sunday

    4th Sunday of Easter – Cycle B (2021)

    I think sometimes that the Easter Season has a marketing and promotion problem, and let me explain a little about why. Think back to the season of Lent a few weeks ago; we might all have a slightly different way of expressing it, but after 2,000 years we all have successfully learned what Lent is, that Lent is a time for regrouping, for taking stock, for prayer and fasting and deciding what changes and forms of reconversion might be good for us. That has been very successful. And then the Easter comes, and in these seven weeks we’re supposed to now feel and do — what exactly? I don’t think…

  • Easter: 4th Sunday

    4th Sunday of Easter – Cycle A (2020)

    Most people who know me find out very quickly that I am a dog person. And not only am I completely crazy about my own dog, I’m nuts about dogs in general. So one thing I have been doing these past few weeks of isolation is spending way too much time watching dog videos. (I’m not ashamed, we’re all doing what we need to do to cope.) What I’ve become particularly addicted to is watching a couple of sheep farms in England that each have a pack of working sheepdogs, and not only have I learned things about dogs, my picture of sheep has been turned upside down. Most of…

  • Easter: 4th Sunday

    4th Sunday of Easter – Cycle B (2009)

    We have to admit it up front that there are problems with the image of sheep and shepherd. Despite the fact that the 23rd Psalm, ‘The Lord is My Shepherd,” is everyone’s favorite, of course it makes us sheep, and if we think about it a little too long, even city kids know what that means. On a sheep behavior Web site I found called Sheep 101, one of the first things it says is this: “When one sheep moves, the rest will follow, even if it is not a good idea.” It illustrates this with an incident just last year in Turkey when 400 sheep plunged over a steep…