The Fellowship of St. Columbanus

Coptic painting of St. Mark Greetings in the name of Christ our Lord on the feast of St. Mark the Evangelist! "The Confucian Great Digest says that 'the chief way for the production of wealth' (and it is talking about real goods, not money) is 'that the producers be many and that the mere consumers be few...'. But even in the much-publicized rebellion of the young against the materialism of the affluent society, the consumer mentality is too often still intact: the standards of behavior are still those of kind and quantity, the security sought is still the security of numbers, and the chief motive is still the consumer's anxiety that he is missing out on what is 'in.' In this state of total consumerism--which is to say a state of helpless dependence on things and services and ideas and motives that we have forgotten how to provide ourselves--all meaningful contact between ourselves and the earth is broken. We do not understand the earth in terms ...

Acts 4:8-12 Ps. 118 1 Jn 3:1-2 Jn 10:11-18 The more I reflect on these passages, the more I am struck by the enormous contrast being made between those who see, hear, recognize and know Christ, and those who don’t. In our Gospel reading, Jesus has just healed a blind man, who rightly responds with an unabashed defense of Christ to the Pharisees, and then with worship. When they drive the man out, Jesus returns to the scene to say, “I came into the world for judgment so that those who do not see may see” (Jn 9:39). and then he continues with a long shepherding analogy, which culminates in today’s passage. While the blind man sees, the Pharisees do not see. Nor do those temple authorities to whom Peter speaks in our Acts passage, following a very similar miracle. Peter’s words to them even suggest that they are so blind to the significance of their past actions that they might need some very specific reminding: “Jesus Christ the Nazorean, whom you crucified...He is the sto...