Let us devote 50% of our resources to installing, maintaining and upgrading the Christian operating system and no more than 50% on the applications. Is 50% too much to ask?

Where do we find the best answer to the question, ‘Who is God?’?

Only one conversation matters

The Magi saw the potential in the feeble human baby born in the manger. His potential was realized on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection where he participated in the first lopsided transaction under the new Paradigm. The signal of the new paradigm repeats itself whenever a Mass takes place. It echoes from then and there, across space and time, to us here and now. The vehicle that carries the echo is the Mass.

Jesus gave us a glimpse of what we are waiting for as he proceeded through the furnace of affliction (Isaiah 48:10) on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection. He did not give us a declaration about God. He gave us a demonstration of God.

What evil will Biden do to our understanding of God? Does he plan to attack the Christian understanding of God? Does he plan to undermine it? As long as he keeps his hands off the Christian understanding of God, Christianity will survive everything else that the prognosticators predict that Biden will do.

The technical, theological jargon of the real presence is only an incidental part of the Mass. The Mass is much bigger than the real presence.

Feeding our neighbors is a sweet fruit of love.

The greatest obstacle blocking us from participating in the new Exodus is our superficial understanding of God

Which is more important? Revelation or regulation?

What is the Good News of Great Joy ? Can you give us a synopsis of it? Do you have the words? Is the answer on the tip of your tongue? Do you carry the Good News of Great Joy with you in your pocket always and everywhere? Or is your pocket empty?

The prodigal son will never go back to the pig sty. Neither will we. We are disobedient not irrational

If we erase the errors of the past, we would have nothing with which to compare the truths of the present. Only by comparison does error illuminate the truth - does evil amplify forgiveness. If there were no Crucifixion, there would be nothing for Jesus to forgive. If there was no forgiveness, how could we reverse engineer forgiveness into a high fidelity understanding of the love of God?

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.

2 Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.

3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

Psalm 100

Who is God?

The greatest mistake that the leadership of the Church is making during this time of pandemic is that they have dispensed with their congregations as insouciantly as they discard used toilet tissue.

Different descriptions of the same story can be stacked together to give us a better insight into the story itself. Jesus’s baptism and the story that unfolded on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection are two descriptions of the same story. What do we get when we stack them together?

Jesus poured the sweet syrup of forgiveness from the reservoir of love that he held in his most Sacred Heart, through his bloody wounds, and into the Valley of Tears to diute its toxicity in the same way that sugar cubes dilute the bitterness of a cup of bad coffee. Dilution is God's solution to the toxicity of the Valley of Tears.

God's love for us is the magic of Christianity. His power built paradise for us. His love for us, however, makes paradise sweet. Power begets respect but love begets love.

Religious practices keep important truths about God alive. When we encounter a religious practice, it is always insightful to try to figure out what truth it is keeping alive. A religious practice not assigned to a truth about God is a fetish - a superstition.

The show must go on! The congregation is optional.

Our journey through life is a slog through hostile territory.

How do we breed the trait of religiosity out of the children of Adan and Eve? Convince the most religious of them not to reproduce. Convince them that celibacy is a virtue.

Is there a way to estimate the size of God’s love for us?

Reality is reliable. We can depend on the reality of his love for us. His love for us is the rock on which the wise build their lives. Whom shall we fear? Of whom shall we be afraid? Will our almighty lover ever let us down? Will he ever disappoint?

To neutralize the the serpent’s anti-God propaganda, Jesus commandeered a cross - the instrument of our woe - and repurposed it to offer us a contradiction.

Armageddon is here and now. We are not fighting for something in the hereafter. The battle is now. Now is the time to join Jesus in the scrum at the line of scrimmage in the Valley of Tears facing off against Evil toe to toe, cheek to jowl. Christianity is not a sport for spectators. Christians partake in the fray.

In what language did God write the Love Note that he sent to us to answer our question, ‘Who are you, God?’.

Christianity is not monolithic. Different factions of Christianity emphasize different aspects of Christianity. Which aspect of Christianity is, in actuality, its most important aspect? To answer this question, we need to look at what aspect of Christianity Jesus himself put in the position of prominence in the showcase of Christianity. The showcase of Christianity is the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection. We made a contribution to the showcase and so did Jesus. We put torture, suffering, killing and death into the showcase. Thankfully, he did not answer the evil that we did to him in kind. He did not give us a taste of our own medicine. His answer to the evil that we did to him was asymmetric - radically asymmetric. Into the position of prominence in the showcase of Christianity, Jesus put forgiveness. Forgiveness is the vehicle that Jesus used to convey to us the nature of God. To know forgiveness is to know God. Do you know your God? The wise anchor their understanding of God to the bombshell of revelation that exploded when Jesus and the evil that we did to him met in violent collision on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection. To what do you anchor your understanding of God?

The Crucifixion is the exclamation point that the Word of God affixed to the sentence, 'God loves us'. GOD DOES NOT JUST LOVE US. GOD LOVES US EVEN THOUGH WE TORTURED AND KILLED HIM. Wow!

The seeds of evil do not germinate in the soil of love. Therefore, build a firewall between you and evil with blocks of love. Stop evil from propagating itself. Stop evil dead in its tracks.

God sent us a Love Note to dilute the toxicity of the Valley of Tears. Jesus was the first drop. Our job is to turn the drop into a flood. God wants us to become Love Notes like Jesus. He wants us to irrigate the Valley of Tears with love to turn it into the gardens of the new Eden here on earth. Our job is done here and now not hereafter and elsewhere. Our job is to pour the sweet syrup of love into the toxic brew held in the Valley of Tears.

Jesus entered the Valley of Tears to hold a conversation with us. “Who are you, God? Identify yourself. Friend or foe?” We shouted our question at him. He whispered his answer to us. The conversation took place on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection. The conversation was an interrogation. We gave Jesus the third degree.

God established communities of love in which we can take refuge from the evils of the Valley of Tears

The serpent is a dynamic but malign force who propels himself through human history repeatedly trying to extinguish God's love for us. The serpent tries time and time again to persuade God that God has made a mistake in loving us. History, therefore, consists of a series of failed attempts by the serpent to extinguish God’s love for us. Furthermore, God exploits these episodes to demonstrate to us the indestructibility of His love for us.

Words beget words. Only Love begets love. Catechesis with words is a poor substitute for catechesis with love.

From his heart, our hearts receive a transfusion of love. The transfusion of love is invigorating. It vivifies us. It brings the dead to life (Luke 15:32) (John 3:3).

The economy of paradise is based on the currency of love. With ordinary currency, the more we spend, the poorer we get. It is a paradox, but with the currency of love, the more we spend, the richer we get.

The greatest threat to our salvation is that our understanding of God is superficial.

Jesus parachuted into the Valley of Tears to bring the war against evil to his enemies. He did not invade the Valley of Tears at the head of a powerful army (Revelation 12:7-12) armed to the teeth. He invaded the Valley of Tears alone, riding a Cross, with no weapon but love. He came to recruit an army of heroes from among the children of Adam and Eve to stand with him shoulder to shoulder, cheek to jowl, in the scrum at the line of scrimmage as comrade-in-arms fighting together in the war against evil as part of a glorious band of sisters and brothers. He invaded the Valley of Tears to bring us the technology that defeats evil (Luke 7:47). He demonstrated that the technology works by using it himself on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection. He donned the jet pack and flew to show us that we, too, can fly. Love is the medicine that inoculates us against evil. Jesus took the medicine and exposed himself to the evil that we did to him to show us that the medicine works. PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that the medicine works. Inoculate yourself with it. Evil is a contagious disease. Don’t let evil infect you. The seeds of evil do not grow in the soil of love. Love is toxic to evil. Love smothers evil was water smothers fire.

What is the foundation of Christianity? A LOVE NOTE IS THE FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY.

God wants us to pour the sweet syrup of love into the bitterness of the Valley of Tears. Our perception of the solution to our dire predicament in the Valley of Tears is different than God’s. We want him to remove the bitterness. He wants us to dilute it. There is a difference in opinions. His prevails.

Are we on the same page as God? Our perception of the problem is the same as God’s. The problem is the bitterness of the Valley of Tears. The sour truth plays rough. It bites. It chews us up and spits us out as bits and pieces. Furthermore, its tongue is as sharp as its teeth. Its tongue generates virulent anti-God propaganda. Our perception of the solution , however is different. We want God to address the bitterness of the Valley of Tears. God wants us to address it. He wants us to dilute it (John 17:15) as sugar cubes dilute the bitterness of a cup of bad coffee.. God wants us to pour the sweet syrup of love into the bitterness of the Valley of Tears. There is a difference in opinions. His prevails

Love deifies us. Love raises us up from the level of the most miserable and hideous of loveless beast to the level of our loving God - from the basement of the kingdom of God to the penthouse.

Love is the gold standard of Christianity against which everything else is measured. Love is not a feeling. Both its scope and its size can be measured.

With regard to the size of his love, Jesus laid down his life for us (John 10:15-18) (John 15:13). He made the payment not from his unlimited divine resources. He made the payment from his limited human resources. He paid them all for us (1 Corinthians 7:23-24). He kept not a penny for himself. He has never paid more for anything else (John 15:13). The exorbitant size of the payment is irrefutable evidence of the exorbitant size of his love for us.