St. Sebaldus was an English monk, most likely a Benedictine, who knew St. Willibald, his brother St. Winebald, and their sister St. Walburga. All of them had been invited by their cousin, St. Boniface, to come to Germany and help him plant the faith among the tribes. Sebaldus joined the German mission, dedicating himself to the region in around Nuremberg.
It is healthy to remember that God is great and powerful and that, in that way, He is different from us and therefore also distant. We also know that by knowing Jesus, God is close to us and invites us to be close to Him. Mysterious, for sure, and challenging.
Jesus desires our faith to be strong, really strong. He issues a surprising and powerful challenge to St. Peter in today’s Gospel. After stepping out of the boat and beginning to walk on water, a feat that requires serious faith, St. Peter then begins to sink and cry out to the Lord who extends His hand and rescues the sinking apostle. Then, our Lord says to Peter, “How little faith you have! Why did you falter?”
The decision in Trinity Lutheran v. Comer was good news for religious interests. Potentially even better news was the Supreme Court’s announcement the following day that it was returning four other cases to the state supreme courts in Colorado and New Mexico to be reconsidered in light of Trinity Lutheran.
It’s August and there are so many new beginnings slated for later this month. In our family, where grown children are no longer bound to school calendars and younger children have been homeschooling year-round, August is still (and always has been) that start of something new.
If our kids set out early this summer to buck the national trend on gratitude, they haven’t yet told my wife and me. And if we come up short of 1,000 by the start of school, I’m going to get out my pen and put us over the top.
Medieval artists often depicted Mary under the title of Our Lady of Mercy, with her arms outstretched to reveal a crowd of tiny suppliants huddled in the folds of her mantle. All kinds of people found a place at Mary’s feet -- from princes and pious nuns to slaves and peasants.
The keys to the kingdom
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus gives to Peter the keys not to the family car but to the kingdom. This Gospel scene is captured powerfully in a painting by the Renaissance artist Pietro Perugino, found in the Sistine Chapel. It depicts Jesus handing on the keys to Peter as the other Apostles look on. Perugino sets it in a vast piazza as if to highlight the singular drama, majesty and universal reach of that moment that will fill the world, with the forgiveness of Christ as it does today in millions of confessions every week.