“Thoughts on the 50th Anniversary of the Loss of RFK”© by Rev. Jim Ryan, jimryan6885@gmail.com Could there have been a more simple time? Remember? Remember. Well, there was the war. Never again would a war be so long, right? And the riots. And discrimination. And family conversations- some would say disputes, some would say outright…
Read more
“Corpus Christi past, present, future. Will liturgy survive?” © Thoughts on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, June 3, 2018 Rev. Jim Ryan, jimryan6885@gmail.com This year’s Solemnity of Corpus Christi finds me wondering about the future of liturgy. Many of us have memories of processions, incense, and multiple altars on which monstrances were placed. Back in…
Read more
“When there’s no awe in awesome and there’s nothing absolute about absolutely.” © Thoughts on 4th Sunday of Easter, April 22, 2018 by Rev. Jim Ryan, jimryan6885@gmail.com So, when you select your entrée from the menu and you tell your server your choice, has it happened to you that the server says, “awesome”? Or, when…
Read more
On Thursday evening, April 4, 1968, at approximately 7:30 PM, I was one of two white folks at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Washington, DC headquarters on the corner of 14 th & U Streets NW. Built in 1907 for the Fourteenth Street Savings Bank – “THE ONLY NIGHT BANK IN WASHINGTON” – there…
Read more
This was our First Reading at this year’s Easter Vigil Service – another take on creation! A New Origin Story by Jean Houston From what Cosmic garden of Eden did you emerge? And toward what destiny are you pointed? Perhaps now, as the ground of the known shifts beneath our feet, what we need in…
Read more
“We Wait on Fire”© by Rev. Jim Ryan, jimryan6885@gmail.com We are waiting on fire. We Christians have two days before the Easter Vigil to get ready for the fire next time. Of course, the joke is on us because the fire has already come. We, frail and faulty as we…
Read more
“Love in a Letter”© by Rev. Jim Ryan, jimryan6885@gmail.com My father was a letter-writer, a skill honed during his six years away from home from 1932-38. This was the time he spent as a member of the Redemptorist Order of priests and brothers – his life as a Frater (Latin for brother). In…
Read more
“What’s Holy Week without a little Irony and Ambiguity?”© by Rev. Jim Ryan, jimryan6885@gmail.com To commemorate the events of Holy Week two things are helpful – even required. The first is a sense for irony and the second is an appreciation for ambiguity. How else are we to share the conviction that apparent weakness is…
Read more
Owls at 4. Geese at 6. © Thoughts on 3rd Sunday in Lent, March 4, 2018 by Rev. Jim Ryan, jimryan6885@gmail.com There is a time of year that the dog, the cat, and I walk out to the fields around the big shed. We stand at the top of the hill overlooking the woods and…
Read more
A 30 Years Journey Begins with, “You’re Dead Wrong, Ron!”© by Rev. Jim Ryan, jimryan6885@gmail.com Community blog: https://maryofmagdala-mke.org/blog At the end of May in 2015 the people of Ireland voted for marriage equality, thereby making love and not legal barriers the hallmark of the contemporary Irish way of life. The event coincided in that year’s…
Read more
