Monday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 473

But God, who is rich in mercy,
because of the great love he had for us,
even when we were dead in our transgressions,
brought us to life with Christ.

We should often remember that we were, as Saint Paul says, dead in our transgressions and sins, in which we once lived following the age of this world.

Not everything about this world is dead-on evil but we must practice a certain chariness about its many impulses, announcements, and pronouncements. It never hurts to ask, "Who is telling me this?" and "Why?" I suspect anything that's pushed as new and exciting. I've had enough of both already, thanks.

And given the hegemony of ideologies, with accusations and counter-accusations on all sides, I find it helpful to turn off the noise and walk away from the circus. 

The AP News recently published a response to Pope Francis: 

“UC Louvain expresses its incomprehension and disapproval of the position expressed by Pope Francis regarding the role of women in the church and society,” the statement said, calling the pope’s views “deterministic and reductive.” 

But the statement came out within minutes of Francis's remarks. It smells like ideology to me. And so I'll be accused of another ideology; that is, patriarchism. But wait! Tell me about that word.

Googles says, 

"The earliest known use of the word "patriarchy" was in 1561 in a translation by Thomas Norton. The word comes from both Latin and Greek, with the Latin word being patriarchia and the Greek word being πατριαρχία. However, the concept of patriarchy has been around for much longer." [underlining mine.]

So people were thinking a concept but didn't know the concept because the word for this concept didn't yet exist. Have I got that right? I guess, before 1561, they just called it sin. Or perhaps they thought it was okay. 

I notice the new emergence of trans vs. cis. (It's short for cisgender and was invented in 1994.) And so I was always a cis and didn't even know it. Or a white guy, or an ugly American.

I am Catholic. (coined by Saint Ignatius in 107 AD.) I'll admit that. And a man, beautifully wonderfully made by God. And a sinner (ala Adam and Eve). 

And I have been sometimes dead in my transgressions and sins, following the age of this world; and the rulers of the power of the air -- think Rufus Murdoch -- and the spirit that is now at work in the disobedient. 

"...yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me." Galatians 2:20

And for the rest of this world's baloney? Thanks, but no thanks.