Watchman for the House of Israel

There is a common thread of real, and very serious, responsibility for neighbor running across all three of this week’s readings. 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A Ezek 33:7-9; Rom 13:8-10; Mt 18:15-20 It’s not that common for the second reading to dovetail this nicely with the first reading and the Gospel reading. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but perhaps it bears repeating (even in somewhat oversimplified form). . . The lectionary cycle for Sunday readings consists of two independent threads of content: the primary thread bein...

Human Rights and the Right to be Human

BlogCatalog.com is organizing a campaign today, May 15th, to encourage bloggers around the world to help raise awareness of human rights issues by blogging about them. I think it’s a terrific idea, and was more than happy to sign up to join the campaign. Human rights is a concept that speaks to the need for each of us to acknowledge the common humanity we share with the rest of the race, and to recognize the duties that we all inherently and inalienably have toward each other in the light of the particular dignity we each possess as human beings. S...