Oro Valley Catholic

Devotion, Liturgy And Adoro Te Devote

The disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray as he prays. The Jewish people prayed the Shema and the psalms. Clearly, they know how to pray. But Jesus prays with an intimacy and relationship to God that the disciples yearned for. It is an intimacy pointed directly towards the Eucharist.
Readings for the 17th Week in Ordinary Time: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072422.cfm
Music: Adoro Te Devote by the St. Mark choir pursuant to license from One License: A-726294

St. Martha The Dragonslayer

St. Martha the Dragonslayer is a story told in the 13th Century 'Golden Legend,' a medieval text telling stories about the saints. St. Martha, who figures in the Gospel of Luke this weekend, slays the dragon with holy water and the cross. What is the dragon represent? Find out in this week's Oro Valley Catholic.
Readings for the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time:https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071722.cfm
Music: Title: Regina caeli, H 32 - Antienne à la Vierge
Composer: Marc-Antoine Charpentier by St. Mark Schola

Desiring, Scapegoating And Samaritans

Rene Girard (1923-2015) a French polymath, anthropologist, historian, literary critic and philosopher described how human beings clash because they desire the same object. Historically, something was sacrificed to resolve the conflict. Since Jesus' Resurrection, however, we side with the victim, but do not accept that Jesus' sacrifice on the cross atones for sin. Thus, the hunt for scapegoats continues without the possibility of resolution, but the certainty of destruction.
Why does Jesus hold up the outsider, the Samaritan, as the model of faith? More on Rene Girard, mimetic desire and scapegoating on this week with Oro Valley Catholic.
Readings:https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071022.cfm
Music: Bach: Cello Suite No. 5 in C minor, BWV 1011 by Colin Carr is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

Was Jesus The Sweetest Little Quarterback Ever? - Elmer Gantry And Evangelization

Elmer Gantry was a novel written by Sinclair Lewis in 1926 exposing so much of the preaching culture that thrived on hucksterism and hypocrisy; -fire, damnation and sweet salvation. It was made into a 1960 film that garnered several Academy Awards and was condemned by a variety of Protestant church leaders. All religious people, Christian and other traditions, we need to be kept honest. So if we know what hypocritical evangelism looks like, what about the real thing? This week, Jesus of Nazareth and his 72 disciples.
Readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070322.cfm
Music: Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581 (Mozart) by Musicians from Marlboro is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

Violence In The Old Testament

"But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD, your God, is giving you as a heritage, you shall not leave a single soul alive." Deuteronomy 20:16 Violence in the Old Testament and now. Does God will us to destroy one another? Jesus response in today's Gospel from Luke 9:51-62 is an emphatic no. Then how are we to understand God's call to violence in the Old Testament? Through the lens of the Gospel.
Readings for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062622.cfm
Music: Pizzetti - Dies irae - Messa di Requiem by The Tudor Consort is licensed under a Attribution 3.0 International License.

The Sacramental Imagination And Corpus Christi

The sacramental imagination is Christ's gift to the Church. The Eucharist is the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ Jesus Risen from the dead. Marriage is the sacramental image of Christ and His Church. Human love, justice, prudence, courage and fortitude participate in the goodness of God. God is present, immanent and transcendent. When we eat bread and wine, it becomes part of our body. When we eat the Body and Blood of Jesus, we become part of His Divine and Glorified Body.
The Readings for the Feast of Corpus Christ: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061922.cfm
Music provided by Russ Ronnebaum in cooperation with St. Thomas Aquinas, Tantum Ergo.

How To Think About God

To think about God as unity in diversity, one God, three Divine Persons - the Holy Trinity is to accept that, at some level, God is not completely comprehensible. We are made in the image and likeness of God and so in some sense we should be able to see his imprint in each of us. What does it mean to believe in the incomprehensible God? His unity, his simplicity, his love for us is the basis of our meditation about God in our own life - especially procreation.
Readings for the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061222.cfm
Music: Bach Prelude & Fugue 5 by John Lewis Grant is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The Holy Spirit And The Rights Of Women And Men

The Holy Spirit is the Love of God. To love God, you must love the good. To love the good is to pursue excellence. Excellence leads to human flourishing, the life of virtue. Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) argued that the rights of women and men depended on a shared life of virtue. Double standards would degrade human life and undermine human flourishing. The Holy Spirit is the love of God. We experience that love when we are fully alive living and loving virtuously God and neighbor.
The readings for Pentecost are found at: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/060522-day.cfm
Music: Arthur's Dream by Nutmeg is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.

Mysticism - Life To Death To New Life

Mysticism is the numinous experience of the Divine. In one sense, mysticism is an esoteric, interior experience. Mysticism is also the experience of the exoteric, Mass and the Eucharist. The esoteric and exoteric are always in tension with one another - my interior experience of the Divine is challenged and is formed by my exoteric experience of Christ's Body, the Church. The Ascension, Christ in his glorified body at the right hand of the Father in Heaven, is the end and purpose of all life, the goal of both the esoteric and exoteric experience, especially made manifest in the anointing of the sick and the funeral liturgy.
Readings for the Feast of the Ascension: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052922-ascension.cfm
Music by Russ Ronnebaum, Tantum Ergo. # A-726294

Apostolic Authority And The Holy Spirit

The Council of Jerusalem, the first Church Ecumenical Council, set the tone for how the Church resolves difficult decisions. Do Christians need to be circumcised? Abstain from meat with blood in it? The Council of Jerusalem, the 15th Century Council of Florence (Basil) and even Trent, Vatican I and Vatican II are legacies of the first council recounted in Acts and Galatians. "‘It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us..." Words that have guided the Church to the present time.
Readings for the Sixth Sunday of Easter are found here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052222.cfm
Music: Thrusly_Marylin.mp3 by Koi-discovery is licensed under a CC0 1.0 Universal License.