~~~SisterSea~~~

Trinity Sunday_Pride Month June 4, 2023   Today is the Feast of the Holy Trinity.   June is both Pride Month and Indigenous Peoples Month in Canada.   Today, I used one of the bible translations accepted by the English-speaking Church because I want to share with you how word choice can limit inclusive and creative thought.   Due to the patriarchal culture of the time, God is addressed as Adonai or Lord in speaking to God, with only the first letter capitalized, as is used by Moses’ prayer in the first reading.   The word LORD in all caps is used six times in today’s first reading.   The name of God used most often in the Hebrew Bible when speaking of God is the Tetragrammaton , romanized as YHWH .   However, the Jewish people traditionally do not pronounce it, and instead refer to God as HaShem , literally "the Name".   This conveys that God cannot be reduced to a “he/him” or a “she/her”.   The culture of our time allows for the use of...

2023-02-05—Be Bread Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time    In last week's gospel, Matthew gave us the Beatitudes.   We often think of the Beatitudes as rewards for different groups of good people.   They are not.   Rather, they are the characteristics that each of us should strive to embody.   One could say they are the ste ps, in no particular order, that can transform us.   As we know Jesus was familiar with the writings of the prophet Isaiah.   In today's first reading Isaiah gives us a hint at what Jesus was getting at in last Sunday's as well as this Sunday's gospel reading.   The issues in the first reading appear more than once in the gospel of Matthew.   Isaiah admonishes us to share our bread with the hungry, to shelter the oppressed and the homeless; to clothe the naked, to remove oppression, false accusations and malicious speech from our communities.   Then, Isaiah tells us, not only will our light break forth like the d...