The Ambo: Homilies for the Faithful

The “Jesus Wife” Coptic Fragment: Facts and Understanding by Deacon Rick Bauer, ThM, Harvard Divinity School; MA Theology, The Augustine Institute Figure 1 : Coptic Text Fragment (enlarged from Boston Globe.com; see below for further reference graphics) This week the newspapers and television news featured Professor Karen King of Harvard Divinity School and her release of a Sahidic Coptic textual fragment she has entitled “Jesus’ wife.” No small amount of discussion has ensued about the value of the information regarding this textual fragment and how it speaks to the question of Jesus’ being married. How does this discovery speak to this question? Facts about this Coptic Fragment The fragment is smaller than a standard business card. It has eight lines on one side, and about 4 words per line. Its text is comparatively small in size, making translation even more difficult (best viewed under a magnifying glass or microscope). This ...

Misunderestimating Jesus 26 th Sunday of Ordinary Time 16 September 2012 Mark 8:27-38 Jesus went out, along with His disciples, to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way He questioned His disciples, saying to them, “Who do people say that I am?”    They told Him, saying, “John the Baptist; and others say Elijah; but others, one of the prophets.”    And He continued by questioning them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered and said to Him, “You are the Christ.”   And He warned them to tell no one about Him.   And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.   And He was stating the matter plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him.   But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting y...

August 12, 2012 Deacon Rick Bauer (note: the following images were used as slides during this homily)   Today we will take a break from fires and shootings and the election, and talk about what everyone else in the world is talking about—the Olympic Games. Our own parish of Our Lady of the Pines is no stranger to the Olympics. Zeke Jones, a member here, is a coach of the Greco-Roman wrestling team at the London Olympic Games. He won a silver in wrestling in the Barcelona Games 8 years ago. His protege, Jordan Burroughs, just won a gold medal in wrestling in London. Jordan was given some grief because a few days before he left for London, Jordan posted, "all I see is gold." You may be criticized for being arrogant, but I'm told that it was all about Jordan's focus, the radical focus an Olympic athlete has to have in order to succeed. We'll talk about that later today. History tells us that the Olympic Games began in the 7th century before Ch...