Rest in Peace Alfie Evans: Matters Sacred and Irreversible

Most who read this will know that 2-year-old Alfie Evans, who suffered from a mysterious neuro-degenerative disease, died last week, the UK Supreme Court having ordered life support be removed and, despite the desires of Alfie’s parents, forbidding him to receive treatment...
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Engaging a Broken World

“How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (John 4:9)   The following reflections are on John 4, which concerns a Samaritan woman who came to draw from a well at noon (which many have suggested meant that she was trying to avoid others who would...
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The Vanishing Down Syndrome Children

  God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence...
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What We Refuse to Know

  So they answered Jesus, “We do not know” (Mark 11:33). Sometimes we don’t know things because we don’t know them. Sometimes we don’t know things because we don’t want to know them. Sometimes we trifle with the things that we should take most seriously. The Pharisees ask...
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Engaging an Abortion-Hardened World

Nathan said to David, “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12:7).   I am always amazed that, having committed adultery with Bathsheba and killing Uriah (2 Samuel 11), the Lord had to send Nathan the prophet to convict David of his sin. If ever a sin was obvious, it was David’s....
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Prayer and Perseverance

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed, and...
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God Sees Her

  “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me” (Genesis 16:13). Recently, I was speaking to a friend over lunch, a woman who has given herself to what we might call the issues of life, particularly abortion and euthanasia/assisted suicide. Speaking of our culture’s...
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Grand Bargaining No, Rethinking Yes

What We Say, What We Mean

You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue (Psalm 52:4). A failed abortion. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, our language betrays what we really mean. The term for this is parapraxis, also known as a Freudian slip. Dictionary.com defines parapraxis as “a slip of the...
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The Cost of Independence: A Christmas Meditation

  And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger (Luke 2:12). Why does the Church make so much of the birth of Jesus? We don’t know anything about, for instance, the young life of Elijah or Noah or Abraham, all of whom...
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An Open Hand

  “For [the kingdom of heaven] will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five...
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