When Frodo Baggins learns that the ring he has inherited is the One Ring of Power, which needs to be destroyed to rid the world of a great evil, he naturally has questions.
Oh, to be a leper in those days. Lepers were considered unclean by the Jewish faithful. They were outcasts. They were accused of being lawbreakers, sinners. Throughout the Gospels, they had a nose for Jesus. And Jesus did not disappoint.
Our first reading this Sunday gives us an endearing vignette with little Samuel sleeping in the temple. We are told that the voice of the Lord was uncommon or “rare” in the early days of Samuel’s life. God’s revelation, and particularly his voice, is a gift. While proper discernment is needed, sometimes God’s silence can be a way of disciplining leaders whose hearts have grown cold.
The familiar dialogue between the angel Gabriel and the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Gospel of Luke is the centerpiece of the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Even the Mass’s Opening Prayer (aka “collect”) sounds familiar, because it’s prayed at the end of the Angelus.
The possibility of hell is a troublesome truth. Not only does it run counter to what I believe to be the basic assumption of many believers these days: that is, that in the end all are saved except for the most hardened and obvious of cases. It also seems to run counter to what we do in fact know about God, and what we rightly emphasize in our efforts at evangelization — he is all good, all loving and all merciful. Does this not preclude the prospect of his condemning men and women to eternal death?