From Season to Season

Dreamers Delivered on August 28, 2013 at Westwood Hill Congregation Church, UCC in Los Angeles, CA On the occasion of the 50 th Anniversary of the March on Washington   What does it mean to have a dream? Why are dreams so important?   As I was thinking about these questions and what we’re celebrating here today, I also asked myself why today really matters to us at all. Why celebrate this anniversary, when there are so many other things we could doing on this warm Wednesday afternoon?     We’re here, today, remembering not only the Dream of Martin Luther King Jr., but the dreams and hopes and disappointments and passions of those women, men, and children, who have been denied justice and fundamental rights... not only those thousands who participated in the March on Washington fifty years ago, but those of every time and place who have cried out to heaven, begging for justice from God because it was denied them by their fellow human beings: de

Have you ever given any thought to what happens after the proclamation of the Gospel at Mass? After the deacon or priest, elevating the Gospel Book, says, “The Gospel of the Lord,” the assembly responds, “Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.” A ritual moment that is certainly simple enough. So simple, in fact, that most of us respond almost automatically, already sitting down to listen to the homily that will follow.     Christ the Teacher from the Monastery of Saint Katherine on Mt. Sinai, 6th century Gospel is the English translation of the Koine Greek ε ὐ αγγέλιον . The Greek term was Latinized as evangelium in the Vulgate, and translated into Latin as bona annuntiatio -- Good News . T he Fathers of the Second Vatican Council, in their Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation ( Dei Verbum ) , explain this Good News in this way: Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy held, and continues to hold, that the four Gospels… whose historical chara