Introspective Sheppardese

Jeremiah 31:27-34, Psalm 119:97-104, 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5, Luke 18:1-8   In today's Gospel we find an illustration of the relationship between the Christian person and prayer. In the story, the widow becomes a model of persistence in prayer.   Let's analyze the situation presented in this parable of Jesus. We have a judge who "neither feared God nor respected men." He is in a position of power and most likely abuses his power. But something happens in the judge's interaction with the widow. The judge changes the way you think.  He says: “I neither fear God nor respect men.   However, as this widow does not stop bothering me, I will defend her, so that she does not keep coming and trying my patience."   Now let's look at the widow's position. In Jesus' time, widows had a very vulnerable and marginalized position. At that time, women were property and marriage ensured subsistence for the woman and the perpetuity of the husband's name. When she ...

In today’s gospel, Jesus’ friends ask him how they might increase their faith. Jesus replies; “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.’ In some way, Jesus’ explanation of faith could makes us feel disoriented because he doesn’t give us the sort of answer we would expect. In my opinion, there is a hidden purpose behind this explanation about faith. How many times have we felt discouraged because we pray, and pray and don’t get the results we expect from God? Sometimes after praying and praying we feel abandoned by God to the point that we think God doesn’t listen… We started with a reading of the book of Lamentations. Here we encountered the voices of people grieving for a collective tragedy. We found the theme of despair …people felt abandoned by God. The author of this text personifies the city: the daughter of Zion. Does the lament sound familiar to you? Aren’t we inclined to echo t...

In Alexandria circa 318–319AD, a priest named Arius was very popular. Using Aristotelean terms, he maintained that “the Son has a beginning, but God is without beginning” and that the Son is not a part of God. This way of thinking was controversial and popular at the same time. Arius had a lot of followers. His teachings were centered on the nature of the  Godhead in Christianity , which emphasized  God the Father's uniqueness and Christ's subordination under the Father , and his  opposition  to what would become the dominant  Christology .  This way of thinking created a lot of division among the Christian churches in the 4 th century. Therefore, Constantine the Emperor, who was a Christian, called for a council in Nicea to make this discussion a top priority. After Emperors  Licinius  and Constantine legalized and formalized the  Christianity  of the time in the  Roman Empire , Constantine sought to unify the newly rec...