Pencil Preaching for Monday, July 13, 2020

The red maple can can flourish in any type of soil, moist or dry, a bit like a strong marriage.

Pencil Preaching for Sunday, July 12, 2020

Young Voices: God calls us all to live in the fullness of God's reign, especially those who are laboring within a system that dehumanizes them, ignores them, takes advantage of them, even kills them.

The U.S. Roman Catholic Church used a special and unprecedented exemption from federal rules to amass at least $1.4 billion in taxpayer-backed coronavirus aid, with many millions going to dioceses that have paid huge settlements or sought bankruptcy protection because of clergy sexual abuse cover-ups.

Perspective: I did not weep in the few minutes I had inside the funeral home or at the abbreviated graveside service. It all happened so fast: COVID-19 robbed us — and more importantly, Mom — of a proper goodbye, leaving me feeling hollow, hurt, angry and guilty.

Scripture for Life: Whether or not we see it, God's grace is at work in our world. Jesus elaborates on this in the parable of the sower, telling us not to worry about what seems to be wasted, but to concentrate on the seed in good ground.

Nearly every bishop responding to a survey said the coronavirus pandemic has seriously affected the celebration of the sacraments and rites and sacramental preparation programs in their dioceses.

16th Sunday in Ordinary TimeOffice of Readings | Morning Prayer | Evening Prayer | Night Prayer | Mass(St John Plessington (c.1637-1679)) John Plessington was born at Dimples Hall, near Garstang, Lancashire, the son of Robert Plessington and Alice Rawstone, into a family at odds with the authorities for both their religious and political beliefs. Educated by Jesuits at Scarisbrick Hall, at Saint Omer’s in France, and then at the College of Saint Alban at Valladolid, Spain, he was ordained in Segovia on 25 March 1662. He returned to England in 1663 ministering to Catholics in the areas of Holywell and Cheshire, often hiding under the name William Scarisbrick. He was also tutor at Puddington Hall near Chester. Upon arrest in Chester during the Popish Plot scare caused by Titus Oates, he was imprisoned for two months, and then hanged, drawn and quartered for the crime of being a Catholic priest. His speech from the scaffold at Gallow’s Hill in Boughton, Cheshire was printed and distributed: He said: “I know it will be said that a priest ordayned by authority derived from the See of Rome is, by the Law of the Nation, to die as a Traytor, but if that be so what must become of all the Clergymen of the Church of England, for the first Church of England Bishops had their Ordination from those of the Church of Rome, or not at all, as appears by their own writers so that Ordination comes derivatively from those now living.” He was beatified in 1929 by Pope Pius XI, and canonized as one of the Forty Martyrs on 25 October 1970 by Pope Paul VI.DK

Signs of the Times: The time is already past to admit that the coronavirus pandemic in the United States is a moral crisis, not simply a public health and economic crisis.