Mother Claire's Sermons

An Egyptian in Amente, the realm of the dead, was allowed to return to earth in order to deal with an Ethiopian magician who was proving too powerful for the magicians of Egypt. He was reincarnated as the miraculous child of a childless couple, Setme and his wife, and called Si-Osiris. When he reached the age of twelve he vanquished the Ethiopian magician and returned to Amente. But before this there was an occasion when father and son observed two funerals, one of a rich man buried in sumptuous clothing and with much mourning, the other of a poor man buried without ceremony or mourning. The father declared he would rather have the lot of the rich man than the pauper, but his son expressed the wish that his father’s fate in Amente would be that of the pauper rather than that of the rich man. In order to justify his wish and demonstrate the reversal of fortunes in the afterlife, he took his father on a tour of the seven halls of Amente. The account of the first three halls is lost. In t...

One of the biggest decisions a parent has to make before the birth of their child is on a name. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to choose the perfect name to set our children up for success. After all, would a rose by any other name smell so sweet? That question is explored in the 2005 book Freakonomics , which discusses naming of children and questions such as the correlation between the number of books in the home and educational accomplishment of children. It turns out, neither the child’s name or quantity of books have the power in and of themselves to create little well-adjusted geniuses. The important thing is what these things say about the parents - if you have a ton of books in the house, you are likely well-educated, have the money and resources to spend on books, and to allow you to spend time reading those books to your children. Same with children’s names - it is what the name tells us about the parents moreso than what it predicts about any child. A friend from high...

There’s an old hymn that begins “there were ninety and nine that safely lay / In the shelter of the fold / But one was out on the hills away / Far off from the gates of gold / Away on the mountains wild and bare / Away from the tender Shepherd’s care.” It’s a lovely sentiment. Unfortunately, it is inaccurate. The song ignores an important word and therefore tames the text so much that it takes most of the risk out of what the shepherd does. Luke and Matthew both contain this story about a shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine behind to find the single lost sheep. But they aren’t left behind in gates of gold, or safely in the shelter of the fold. Matthew has the sheep “on the mountain”. Luke is even more stark in where the ninety-nine are: “in the wilderness”. So, unlike the song suggests, it isn’t just the one sheep who is on the “on the mountains wild and bare”, it’s the ninety-nine as well. Today we read the first two in a series of three parables about finding something that was lost....

As parents, one of the life skills my husband and I are teaching our kids is how to proportionally react to things. That it’s ok to feel disappointed, but maybe sitting down and screaming isn’t the best way to express those feelings. It’s ok to be angry, but hitting is not an acceptable way to express that anger. It’s ok to be sad that we’re leaving the park, but running away and hiding is not an option. Even as we learn to self-regulate as we grow up, we don’t always react to things appropriately. We overreact or underreact all the time, just usually not by sitting down and screaming. But we do the adult equivalent. We push away people we love. We inappropriately use substances. We pretend problems don’t exist - the adult equivalent of when my kids pretend not to hear me when I have something to say that they don’t want to hear. Today, in eight short verses, Luke gives us two opportunities to overreact and one to underreact. We start out strong with an overreaction. Jesus says, “whoev...

My oldest daughter is now three weeks into being a first grader. We found the sign shaped like an apple we bought at Target before she started preschool to write what grade she was starting and what she wanted to be when she grows up. She told me she wants to be an astronaut - a big step into realism from last year, when she wanted to be a unicorn. But as I dropped her off that first day, there was a prickle of fear. A prickle that was then realized this week when we got the news of another event that marks the beginning of a new school year: the first mass shooting at an American school. On Thursday, I listened to an interview where a 10-year-old boy from Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis told of hiding under a pew with his friend on top of him, shielding him, as gunfire came through the stained glass windows while the kids were at mass Wednesday morning. Annunciation is named after the event which marked the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. But now, when I type “annunc...

One of the most helpful things when looking at sacred art is its use of symbolism. For most of our early saints, like the apostles, we have no real idea what they looked like, so there are various symbols that help us recognize who is supposed to be in an image or an icon. For example, if you see someone holding keys, that’s Saint Peter, to whom Jesus gave the “keys to the kingdom” or if you see someone with a stone, that’s Saint Stephen, who was martyred by stoning - for the most part, martyrs are depicted with the implement of their martyrdom, which is a bummer. So you do have to know something about a saint before you can spot them, but once you do it’s like you’ve cracked a code and it can make it easier to understand sacred art. But there is a sweet spot for subtlety. Too subtle, and no one knows what you’re talking about. Too on the nose, and it can feel like it lacks creativity or inspiration. A few years ago, I watched The Matrix for the first time. And as a result, the algori...