Missing Verses

This week's Epistle reading is Hebrews 13:1-8,15-16. Note that the editors of the Revised common Lectionary have deleted verses 9-14. I have included these and highlighted them in red.

 Let mutual love continue. 2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. 3 Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. 4 Let marriage be held in honour by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers. 5 Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’ 6 So we can say with confidence,

‘The Lord is my helper;

   I will not be afraid.

What can anyone do to me?’

7 Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever. 

9 Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings; for it is well for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by regulations about food, which have not benefited those who observe them. 10 We have an altar from which those who officiate in the tent have no right to eat. 11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. 12 Therefore Jesus also suffered outside the city gate in order to sanctify the people by his own blood. 13 Let us then go to him outside the camp and bear the abuse he endured. 14 For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. 

15 Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. 16 Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

Isn't it interesting that those who teach would delete the warning to "not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings..." ????

Perhaps they are aware that they might be the ones who are guilty of teaching strange things.

Meanwhile in India

I have been seeing an increasing number of reports from India of attacks on Christians ever since the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This is the most recent example from Premier Christian News, 

A Christian pastor in India has been assaulted by Hindu extremists who accused him of "distributing blood" during communion.

A video - uploaded by the attackers themselves and shared on social media - shows the group entering a small church in Solapur in Maharashtra last month.

The so-called 'cow protectors' confronted the pastor over the communion wine and although he explained that it was grape juice, the group demanded to see a license for distributing it. They then seized the remaining juice and assaulted him.

The persecution watchdog Open Doors said the Hindutva nationalists claimed the pastor gathered 20 to 25 women and gave them “addictive” red wine. He was also falsely accused of using bribes to carry out coercive conversions.

In another false post circulating on social media the church is accused of “forcefully offering red wine to the women believers and intoxicating and defiling them.”

In much of India, alcoholic beverages are banned.  

Open Doors local partner Radhika ( name changed for security reasons) said: “Hindu extremists distort and fabricate claims to fit their agenda and incite fear and hostility against Christians.

“Recently, incidents of church disruptions have become increasingly common in Maharashtra.

“There is immense pressure from Hindutva-led state government and Hindutva extremist groups to enforce a new anti-conversion law in the state.” 

There are currently 11 states in India which have enacted anti-conversion laws. They are ostensibly put in place to curb religious conversions carried out through inducements or coercion. However critics argue that in reality they give a free hand to Hindutva nationalists to marginalise and fuel violence against minority religions.

Radhika added: “Several Hindutva political leaders are known to be spreading hate speech and accusing the Christian community of coercive conversion.

“The extremists continue to attack the churches and pastors.”

India is number 11 on Open Doors’ World Watch List, an annual ranking system of the 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution.

Since the Mughal empire brought Islam to India, there has been backlash from the Hindus against forcible conversions. Even though St. Thomas brought Christianity to India early on, it seems that hostility towards the Christian minority was not too severe until after British colonialism came in. After India's independence from the British we first saw terrible Muslim vs Hindu violence and the mass exodus of Muslims to Pakistan, and they are still leaving India today. Christians are the obvious next target of the Hindu extremists who want to rid the country of all "foreign" influences. Never mind that Christianity has been there for nearly 2000 years.

My Indian friends say that this stuff just goes on in the "villages" where there is a lot of ignorance. 

I say that P.M. Modi could stop it if he wanted to.

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering

This Sunday's reading from Hebrews 12:18-29 struck me with its heavenly vision.

You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them. (For they could not endure the order that was given, ‘If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned to death.’ Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, ‘I tremble with fear.’) But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

 See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking; for if they did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape if we reject the one who warns from heaven! At that time his voice shook the earth; but now he has promised, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.’ This phrase ‘Yet once more’ indicates the removal of what is shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire.

"The spirits of the righteous made perfect" is a stark reminder that even the best of us will not achieve in this life the goal spoken in Matthew 5:48,

"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."

That perfection will be reached only through Jesus' mediation. 

 

Thinking about swimming the Tiber? Think twice...

 By Jules Gomes Published on August 19, 2025 at The Stream

Marking a historic first, the Vatican is officially recognizing group pilgrimages of LGBT+ Catholics as participants in Rome’s Jubilee Year events while Pope Leo XIV prepares to host a radical group dedicated to overturning biblical teaching on sexual morality.

Pro-LGBT+ Catholics are applauding the Vatican’s openness in arranging for Leo to meet with one of the Catholic Church’s most extreme lobby groups, We Are Church, which has been invited to the Vatican by Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary general of the Synod on Synodality.

The Italian bishops’ media outlet, L’Avvenire, confirmed on August 14 that Grech, one of the highest-ranking cardinals in the Vatican, has invited eight members from We Are Church to join the Jubilee Year events scheduled for October 26-28.

The movement is “known for its radical demands for ecclesial reform,” the bishops’ newspaper acknowledged, including the ordination of women, the freedom to use artificial contraception, the full inclusion of homosexuals in the Church, and optional priestly celibacy.

LGBT+ Leaders Rejoice Over Vatican Welcome

“We are delighted with this opportunity. There is much anticipation for this meeting, and even a certain amount of joy,” said Elza Ferrario, spokesperson for the Italian branch of the campaign group. “We are a reformist movement that hasn’t always had good relations with the institutional Church, so we are pleased to hear words of esteem.”

The pilgrimage is called: “Church: Home for All, LGBT+ Christians and Other Existential Frontiers.”

“Our patient work over 30 years, during which we have often been present in Rome at bishops’ synods, council commemorations, papal elections, and other events, may have contributed to this,” We Are Church cofounder Christian Weisner told Vatican News. “I also see the passage through the Holy Door as a sign for the Church as a whole: to leave mistakes behind and to set out again and again in Christian hope.”

The Jubilee 2025 website explains that the Holy Door in designated basilicas “is the most powerful sign of the Jubilee” and “passing through the Holy Door expresses the decision to follow and be guided by Jesus, who is the Good Shepherd.”

In Catholic understanding, pilgrims who pass through the Holy Door do so with repentant hearts and a genuine desire to change their lives. Conservative Catholics have objected to the weaponization of the Holy Door symbolism by LGBT+ groups that intend to subvert its meaning by calling upon the Church instead to repent for its biblical position on homosexuality.

Conservative Catholics Blast Holy Year Weaponization

“The practice of homosexuality is a very serious moral transgression condemned by Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church,” writes Italian historian Roberto Mattei.

If a homosexual repents of his sin and confesses, he can certainly pass through the Holy Door, entrusting himself to the mercy of God for the remission of the punishments due to his sins, but he does not need to do so with fanfare, and much less in an organized group.

Official participation in the Jubilee by an association of homosexuals, which does not have the goal of their conversion but rather justifies their conduct, has a clear instrumental intent: that of making it appear that the Church has changed its judgment on homosexuality.

The historian is calling upon Vatican authorities to “prevent these instrumentalizations” and reiterate “the incompatibility that exists between the Holy Year and moral transgression asserted as a right” lest “become complicit in the moral violation that they fail to condemn.”

Meanwhile, several Catholic LGBT+ groups have announced that they will be participating with the Vatican’s approval in the Jubilee Year services. The Vatican is officially listing their participation listed in the Jubilee Year Calendar, scandalizing Catholics who remain faithful to the Church’s traditional teaching on homosexuality.

That teaching, however, suffered a serious setback after Pope Francis permitted priests to offer nonliturgical blessings to same-sex couples in his 2023 declaration Fiducia Supplicans.

Bishop Will Celebrate Mass for Global LGBT+ Pilgrims

On August 12, LGBT+ Catholics Westminster’s Younger Adults Group members and others from LGBT+ Catholics Westminster announced that they will join pilgrims from the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics, the European Forum of LGBTI+ Christian Groups, Roman Catholic member groups, and a large number of Italian LGBT+ Catholic groups in Rome.

“For the first time in church history, LGBTQ+ Catholic groups are getting ready to participate in the Jubilee, not in spite of their queerness, but through it,” noted New Ways Ministry, a pro-LGBT+ Catholic campaign group.

On September 5, LGBT+ pilgrims will join in a Prayer Vigil, which will be “a time for everyone to be recognized in their uniqueness.” The next day, LGBT+ pilgrims will be guided through the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica with Bishop Francesco Savino of Cassano all’Jonio celebrating Mass for LGBT+ groups at the Church of the Gesù, the mother church of the Jesuit order.

In an interview on the Feast of the Assumption, Savino said that LGBT+ groups participating in the Jubilee “is like a bell ringing loudly in the deafening silence of exclusion: a clear, strong and irreversible signal that reminds us that the Gospel is not a manifesto for a few elected, but a love letter addressed to the entire human family.

“It is not a question of ‘hosting’ someone in the house of the Lord, but of recognizing that everyone is already a full inhabitant,” the prelate said. “In the beating heart of the Eucharist — which is the very heart of the Gospel — nobody is a foreigner, nobody is excluded, nobody is invisible.”

Faithful Roman Catholics need to speak up now or forever hold their peace. 

Division

This Sunday's reading is from Luke 12:49-56,

‘I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on, five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:

father against son

   and son against father,

mother against daughter

   and daughter against mother,

mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law

   and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.’

He also said to the crowds, ‘When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, “It is going to rain”; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, “There will be scorching heat”; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

My Dad used to say, "Never discuss religion or politics at the dinner table" to reduce the chance of conflict. 

The worst subject to bring up is church politics.

Jesus still divides. 

I have had friends who developed such anti-Christian opinions that they no longer speak to me. 

I guess I was warned.

Meanwhile in Sweden: A Storm over the Rainbow Vestment

 Tamás Orbán reports at The European Conservative,

Swedish Priest Under Media Fire for Refusing To Wear Rainbow Vestment

Multiple leftist media outlets attacked Swedish pastor Håkan Persson, the parish priest of Markaryd, after a recent social media post in which he criticized the new rainbow-colored, LGBT-friendly vestments designed to be the symbol of the progressivism of the Church of Sweden.

In his Facebook post, Persson stated that the rainbow-colored chasuble and stole, designed at the initiative of the Västerås diocese, “will not enter Markaryd’s church as long as I am vicar.” 

While the media paints him as acting from “a hidden minority-intolerant agenda” and accuses him of discriminating against the LGBT community in his parish, the priest insists he merely follows the liturgical rules of the church, and his doors remain open to anyone, but not to momentary political trends and sexual advertising.

“In the Church of Sweden, we have liturgical vestments that follow the church year. We actually have rules for that,” Persson explained. Anything other than white, red, green, and purple, depending on the liturgical season, is inconsistent with the Church’s official guidelines, he said.

Good for him for standing firm in an otherwise wayward Church. 

Be Dressed For Action!

 This Sunday's reading is from Luke 12:32-40,

‘Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. ‘Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.

‘But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.’

How do you stay dressed for action?