Growing up I heard a variety of stories about the Roman Catholic Church.  My entire family is Roman Catholic, yet my parents never took me very much, and hardly attended themselves.  As a result, most of my perceptions were from other's stories.  I had an uncle who would tell me about attending parochial school, how he was taught by the nuns, and whenever they would get out of line one of the sisters would throw a piece of chalk at them.  Laughing, he described how this nun could hit you between the eyes with a piece of chalk from across the room.  Years later I had a co-worker who shared stories about being an altar boy.  He and his friends would fight with each other over who would ring the bells when the priest was saying mass.  These fights often took place during the service, and this priest had a technique of kneeling down reverently so he could kick them without being seen.  He didn't kick them hard, but enough to get their attention so the...

This week we hear the story of Jesus' baptism.  According to the text, some curious things happened which deserve our attention. 1 - The heavens opened up (Mark 1:10) 2 - The Spirit descended on Jesus in a form that looked like a dove (Mark 1:10) 3 - A voice from Heaven said to Jesus, "You are my Son, with you I am well pleased (Mark 1:11)" What we see in this story is the coming together of Heaven and Earth - the Spiritual and the Material fuse as one.  Classical Christianity has always, since the time of the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., stated that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human.  In Him we see this perfect fusion of Spirit and Matter.  Sometimes it may seem like that's easy for Him, since He is God incarnate, but what if that was the goal of spirituality for everyone - joining and integrating the spiritual and the material.  Or even more challenging, what if the purpose of human beings is to be like Christ in this regard, integrating the mate...