The Encouraging Thomist

The Betrayal of Christ Icon I. Who is your enemy? And no, this isn't a hypothetical question.  It isn't a thought project.   I'm being serious:    Who is your enemy? Enemy,  according to the dictionary, can mean a few different things.   One definition is, "a thing that harms or weakens something else."    "Laziness is the enemy of progress," for instance.      Laziness, of course, being seen as something that harms or weakens progress. Another definition of Enemy is, "a hostile nation, including its armed forces and citizens."  This could be something along the lines of,   "Nazi Germany was the enemy of England and the United Kingdom in WWII."   And then there is a third definition,  and it is actually the primary definition of Enemy for the Cambridge Dictionary:   "A person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something."     [all taken from dictionary.com or from dictionary.cambridg

Sermon on the Mount Icon I. "Hey you!  Yes! You all sitting here!   How would y'all like to be the instruments of God's judgement    here on this earth? That's right, you can be a part of God's judgement  carried out   today!" Sound like something you want to be a part of?  Excellent, let's get started! Because, first and foremost,  we need to be clear about what it means   to carry out God's judgment on the world. Judgement is such a misunderstood word.  A word that, at least etymologically in our English language,   has often been associated with the words "vindictive" and "vindication"    which are certainly fine uses of judgement in a sense.     [https://www.etymonline.com/word/justice] But it becomes much more complex when vindication  gets conjugated into one of its other forms: vengeance.   And even more complicated when vengance    turns into re-venge.    [https://www.etymonline.com/word/ven

Calling of the Fishermen Icon I. Fishing is much more complicated than it looks sometimes. At least, that's my own novice opinion,  but I think the more hardcore anglers out there will also agree. One of my clergy friends absolutely loves fly fishing.  He finds great comfort and relaxation going fishing,   and he even keeps a log of days per year that he goes out on the river. One day, when he had started to pick up fly fishing,  he got up early one morning, prepared his tackle box, and cast out in the river.   He caught a few fish here and there.    It was a nice time and he called it a day. However, one of his friends noticed that he was casting awfully shallow  for the kind of water that flows down the river.   His friend started to tell him about how the river fish tend to live and eat    and he realized why he may not have been catching many fish to begin with. You see, in the river, the top of the water moves very quickly.  The water is rushed and

Agnus Dei (Lamb of God)   Icon I. Love.  Is not.   A feeling. Love.  Is.   A choice that we make. If you don't hear anything else from this sermon,  at least hear that.   Because it highlights a critical issue that we all are affected by    whether we realize it or not. The word "Love" is used so often  by so many people   in so many different contexts and different ways    that the meaning of the word has simply lost all meaning. For example, if you are a frequent listener to the Billboard Charts  that highlights the top popular music tracks of the weeks,   there is a high chance you will run across songs that deal with    Love as being a feeling,     an infatuation,      an attraction,       or something even lesser than those. Love is so all-encompassing in the U.S.'s musical mind  that there are even songs that make fun of this concept of love,   such as Maren Morris's country song, in which she wants a love song    that do