“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” Purity is holiness, untainted by any human impulse, unblemished by sin.  Jesus is talking about the releasing of all that stands between us and God in this Beatitude. And when we have released all that separates us from God, we will see God.[1] […]

  “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.” The Greek word used most often in the New Testament for mercy is eleos. It means mercy, pity, the moral quality of feeling compassion and especially of showing kindness toward someone in need. This can refer to a human kindness and to God’s kindness […]

             “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” This second of the Beatitudes addresses all those who have lost someone or something dear to them. There is an emptiness in the people who mourn, a loss that hurts terribly. And yet death is the most natural of things that happen to every […]

“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome this world.” John 16:33. I came across this verse through “Jesus Calling,” a daily devotional. And it startled me. It’s not a verse that is quoted often, but it is one that explains a lot about what the world is like, what we […]

Happy New Year! We get to begin again. Set new priories. Plan anew. Put the past behind us. Look to the future. Set ridiculous goals trying very hard to change who we are to become. All of these tendencies of thinking about the new year come from our minds which are steeped in worldly wisdom. […]

I will be leaving this afternoon for a long retreat, returning at the end of July. I will not be posting my blog on my website during that time, but you can read it on Facebook at By the Waters. There you will find that I break the essay into five pieces and post one […]

Reviewing the last four weeks’ blogs on healing, the first thing I notice is that all different kinds of people need healing in the accounts of Jesus’ healings: yes, the blind, the deaf, and the lame, the poor and outcast, but also a synagogue leader, the son of a royal official, friends of Jesus and […]

  Healing of the dead and dying is the fourth category of healing Jesus does as reported in the Gospels. Jesus heals the daughter of Jarius, a synagogue leader, who has either just died(Matthew 9:18) or is close to death(Mark 5:23-9) and the son of a royal official who is close to dying in Capernaum […]

Now the crowds were pressing up against Jesus as the word of his healing of Jarius’(a patron of the synagogue) daughter spread. There was a woman in the crowd who came up behind him and touched his cloak. She was immediately healed of the bleeding condition that had plagued her for twelve years. According to […]

This week we turn to the second category of the Jesus’ healings, the physical conditions that hamper our ability to move and see in the world and also to hear and to see and to understand what Jesus taught.  Jesus healed many blind people, deaf and deaf mutes, people who were paralyzed, one with a […]