Our prayer for this day, the Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Give it up.  If it belongs to along, return it there. If it belongs to God, give it up to God. There is God and there is no other. God is our Lord and there is no other. Give it up.

Give it up. Sing to the Lord a new song of glory and honor. Give glory and praise to the Lord due his name! Worship the Lord, tremble before Him, saying the Lord is King, Give it up.

Give the Good News up and out. It did not come to you in word alone, but from the power of the Spirit greater than you. We are called to works of faith and labors of love and endurance in hope. No excuses.. Give it up.

Which broaches the topic of how’s your NCYC fundraising coming along?

from The Far Side

Success

is going from

failure

to

failure

without loss of enthusiasm.

- Winston Churchill

Sorry to be coming so late to the table regarding a Steve Jobs memorial. (Jesuit Father James Martin offered a great one for America and Time had a cover story.)

In a world of conformity, of going along to get along, Steve Jobs called our attention to the value of thinking different, of investing effort into the design of our dreams.  Here’s to the crazy ones like Steve Jobs. <h/t Adam>

"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify and vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as crazy, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."

If you want ro explore a little more and have not seen it within the last week or so, you must check out Job’s 2005 Stanford Commencement Address. It is because of death that we have an understanding of life!

There’s a place for us, somewhere a place for us. Peace and quiet and open air wait for us somewhere.

Over half a century ago in West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim offered a ballad for star-crossed lovers seeking their place in a complicated world. This song, now sung in local high school productions, still reflects the mood of a younger generation. Yet, it no longer seems as harmonic and lovely as it once did.

This February, the cover of Time Magazine profiled “The Generation Changing the World.” Reporting on what we have come to know as the Arab Spring, they profiled the young men and women who were leading Days of Rage. Many of them were novices at political activism and used social-networking and texting to organize and communicate about their protests.

In August, days of rioting broke out in London following the shooting of a black twenty-nine-year-old and the initial protest that followed. Some blamed the riots on a "sense of entitlement" which has been seen among Britain’s youth.

Meanwhile, back here in the United States, our own young adults find much about which they can be frustrated.

(more…)

YouTube for You to Use: (Note that we discussed this on Thursday as well.)

Psalm 96 begins “Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth. Sing to the LORD, bless his name; proclaim his salvation day after day. Tell his glory among the nations; among all peoples, his marvelous deeds.”

Faith is not mean to be a solo act. Our new song is meant to be sung in chorus. The conductor here, Eric Whitacre, assembled over 2,000 individual submitted video contributions to his virtual choir. (stay for the credits at the end of the clip, they are from all over the world, all ages, all nations.)

We can make a beautiful noise, but joined together, we have the voices of the angels.

We are each called differently,  some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers… for building up the body of Christ,  (Ephesians 4)

Isn’t it time to add your God-given voice to the Church?

I’m a fan of DC Comics and so I was watching this coming.  On the left you have the cover of Action Comics #1 as they re-boot their entire line of comics. Note the absence of the classic red trunks as well as the rolled-up cuffs (is this becoming fashionable again?)

On the left is a leaked photo from Warner Brothers’ new film Man of Steel showing actor Henry Cavill wearing a blue Superman suit without red trunks. (as always, click images to enlarge.)

It turns out that when originally created the red trunks evoked an image of the circus strong man. Well, we not longer are  doing that as much…

And now the fanboys of comicdom have got their own panties in a wedgie over the whole thing. Skye Jethani recently wrote about Leadership Lessons from Superman’s Underpants for Christianity Today and commented on 
>> Don’t underestimate the power of symbols
>> One generation’s “cool” is another’s “creepy”
>> Sometimes compromise is just dumb
>> The people, not leaders, decide what’s important
It’s worth a look.

Our prayer for today, the Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time:

Lord, we want to live with you. We want to live within you. May we live in the house of the Lord all the days of our lives, taking up residence on this mountain the Lord of hosts. Makes no matter if it is humble circumstances or if it is with abundance, we can do all things in the One Who strengthens us.

You summon us towards You.  Inviting us to a banquet with a table of all Your grace and goodness spread before us. The meal refreshes our very soul, it offers us courage.

Rejoice and be glad. This is the One Whom we have sought. The feast is ready, we should prepare ourselves so that we might be worthy to attend. Bless our Lord and King, He has saved us.

A minister was completing a sermon. With great emphasis he said,
‘If I had all the beer in the world, I’d take it and pour it into the river.’

With even greater emphasis he said, ‘And if I had
All the wine in the world, I’d take it and pour it into the river.’

And then finally, shaking his fist in the air, he
Said, ‘And if I had all the whiskey in the world,
I’d take it and pour it into the river.’

Sermon complete, he sat down…

The song leader stood very cautiously and announced
With a smile, nearly laughing, ‘For our closing song,

Let us sing Hymn #365, ‘Shall We Gather at the River.’