For most people, the most difficult aspect of Jesus’s teaching is that which relates to the requirement that we must forgive those who have hurt or offended us. This seems to be related to the fact that most of us think that by forgiving someone, we are extending to them a favour or a grace that they do not deserve, given the pain and hurt that they have caused us.

This is certainly how I used to think.

It was only after I discovered how much freedom comes from forgiving another person that I discovered the deeper spiritual reasons for Jesus challenging us to forgive others in the same way that we desire to be forgiven by Him. Continue reading →

In my opinion, the best flavour of ice cream in the entire world is chocolate peanut butter. I love this flavour of ice cream so much that I cannot keep any in the house. When, and if, I do keep it in the house, I am unable to control myself and I usually eat the whole pint in one sitting.

The preference that I have for chocolate peanut butter ice cream is a personal opinion. The fact that I like it, is a truth that is relative only to myself. Others may have different opinions and it does not really affect my opinion or their ability to have a different opinion. My opinion on this matter does not really present a problem for others.

On the other hand, there would be a real problem if for some reason, I believed that my opinion needed to become a truth for all people. If for some reason, I believed that everyone else had to share my preference for chocolate peanut butter ice cream, my insistence on this issue would begin to infringe on the right of others to have an opinion. Worse, still, would be the case if I were to form an alliance with all the other people who loved chocolate peanut butter ice cream and we worked together to lobby for laws that required that only chocolate peanut butter ice cream could be manufactured. We could demand that no other flavours be manufactured and that all people must eat our flavour of ice cream. Taking our efforts to the extreme, we could demand that everyone eat chocolate peanut butter ice cream and perhaps put at risk the lives of those people who have a severe allergy to peanuts. Continue reading →

There is a rather simple story about death that I heard several years ago. Because it captures so concisely how I think we as Christians feel about death, I usually tell this story at every funeral I celebrate, either at the funeral home prayers or in the homily at Mass.

The story simply goes like this:

A preacher was preaching to a congregation. He said, “if anyone wants to go to heaven, please stand up now.” Everyone in the congregation stood up. He then said, “if you want to go now, keep standing.” At this point, everyone sat down. Continue reading →

If a stranger calls you on the phone, it is very hard to know if what they tell you about themselves is true. They can claim to be tall, when in fact they are very short. They can promise you a free vacation in a dream paradise, when in reality they are simply trying to get your credit card number. They can also claim to be calling on behalf of Revenue Canada and require your soc The same is true for e-mail. We can receive an e-mail from someone claiming to be other then they are and asking us to send them money. Others make outrageous promises to deposit large amounts in our bank accounts if we send them our banking information and passwords.

We can only really be sure that someone is who they claim to be when they come into our presence and prove that they can deliver on the promises that they make to us. Even in the case of people we do know, unless they live among us and show us that we can trust them, it is hard to know if they can fulfill the big promises that they might make to us.

The promises that Jesus makes to us are huge. Continue reading →