Where is the next place where there is a critical mass of believers who are evangelically motivated to find bold and novel ways to talk about Jesus, believers who are less concerned with “the wrong sort of people” and more concerned with (gasp!) being the right kind of witnesses.

Was Mary wondering what Jesus might do if she anointed Him? Was she thinking that maybe more people would follow Him if she did something really provocative like that?

A donkey says power isn’t what you think it is. Mercy is power. Virtue is power. Healing is power. Power isn’t the ability to make someone submit, but to make someone whole.

The ways in (to heaven) are the witnesses who first told the story of salvation. Believing the story, and being a character in the story, therefore, is the way in. And seeing such people is what will persuade the nations to believe the story and come in, too.

We are better at remembering prophets than following them. Better at building monuments than recognizing their voices among us in their own time.

Soup kitchens, food pantries, and homeless shelters are not enough. We need evangelization to build an army, too, and the Eucharist to feed it.

We are in a thicket of paths, and only one leads to heaven. There is no “right for you, but not for me.” That path leads, little bit by little bit, to the diabolical confusion that is the aroma of our days.

God knows all the opportunities we missed, for sure, but he also knows all the ones we didn’t, the ones that opened our eyes and changed our minds, the ones that we go to Church and say Thank You for, Sabbath after Sabbath, year after year. Those are the ones we talk about in the hope that our experience may help a partner, sibling, neighbor, friend, or boss.

Do our habits and the things we touch, say, and keep nearby say “God” very loudly?

Christianity is a salvation religion, and that requires, first and foremost, the recognition that we need saving, that we are not OK and won’t be OK apart from some kind of divine intervention.

We can only recognize a God of Mercy, however, if we recognize ourselves as people twisted and distorted by sin. Who pays attention to mercy but sinners?

We flatter ourselves sometimes, imagining that our pains, struggles and sorrows are evidence that we are dealing with the “real world,” while religious people are indulging childish fantasies about angels and friends in heaven.

“Basically good people” make few demands, maybe none, because their goodness is basic – it’s just getting started. Jesus means his goodness to go into the life of God Himself.