Musings from the High Desert

Fr. Gabriel Rochelle looks into the Jewish background of Matthew's gospel from the viewpoint of seeing it as a novel with history and biography folded in. In particular, there may be an interesting background to Matthew's assertion of the fourteen generations separating Abraham from David, David from the deportation to Babylon, and the deportation to the Christ. Lastly we consider how we might use this information in our own ministries today.

Fr. Gabriel Rochelle looks at the Epistle lesson for today from Colossians 3, which is underlined by he opening verses of the chapter about seeking Christ above and the mind of Christ. In the following verses, "putting off" five sins of sex and five sins of speech are addressed, and then we hear about "putting on" Christ - which has an echo of baptism. Ultimately we are pointed toward a life of relationships underlined by the self-giving love God showed in Christ, a life which was projected in the ancestry of Christ, those who submitted to the guidance of God forward through history.

Fr. Gabriel Rochelle addresses the cultural concept of "Santa Claus" in comparison to what we know about the real St. Nicholas of Myra, commemorated each time we serve the liturgy of preparation at the proskomedia table.

Fr. Gabriel Rochelle returns to his series of meditations on the meaning of the liturgy. Today we consider the meaning of "remembrance" or "memorial." This remembrance is far more than a mental act; it is the presence of Christ himself in and through the eucharistic sacrifice, a presence which is available to us as a "foretaste of the feast to come."

Fr. Gabriel Rochelle offers a brief meditation on the marvelous passage in Ephesians 2 on the peace which Christ can and will create among peoples, a promise carried forth in the early church's notion that we are a new or "third" race uniting peoples.

Fr. Gabriel Rochelle suspends his series on the liturgy for this week to contemplate the meaning of the cosmic Christ as depicted in Colossians and especially in the opening chapter of Ephesians. This connects with the imagery that the early church fathers found in the Old Testament referring to Christ. Fr. Gabriel demonstrates how this form of interpretation enables us to overcome literalism and discover deeper insights into the meaning of the Holy Trinity.

After considering crossing the threshold and coming into the holy space, Fr. Gabriel Rochelle goes to one of the oldest brief descriptions of liturgy in the Bible, at Acts 2:42, where we hear that the community gathered around "the apostles' teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayers." Fr. Gabriel goes into each of these rudiments of liturgy and concludes with a call to remember that we only come into this place and engage in this liturgy through repentance and forgiveness, as seen in the early Christian document known as the Didache.

Fr. Gabriel Rochelle begins a series of reflections on the meaning of "church" and the meaning of "liturgy" by considering what it is we are doing when we cross the threshold into the space where church happens and what it means to be gathered as church in this space.

One of Fr Gabriel Rochelle's mentors in graduate school in Bible said, "Our task is not to make the New Testament relevant to us; our task is to make ourselves relevant to the New Testament." He explores this idea in some depth with regard to the issues St Paul confronts in the Galatian Church.

St. Paul's overall view of Jesus Christ is fascinating to this day; he tried to discover a variety of ways to express the experience of the Lord to others in his society. Part of that attempt shows up in today's Epistle lesson, where Paul talks about "sufficiency" and reverses imagery from the Greco-Roman background. His word remains relevant for us today.

Fr Gabriel Rochelle plunges into the deep meaning of the 7th Council on the Iconographic controversy historically, and for us today. This council has great meaning for us because it underwrites our human efforts in art and music.

Fr Gabriel Rochelle backs away from the text, Luke 7:11-16, to ask why the church uses so many of these texts about healing throughout the year. The answer may well be that we are to examine how we are healed by the Gospel and how we might best communicate that to the world.

When the acids of the age have eaten into the fabric of the faith, when social ministry passes for the gospel and love may mean sentimental acceptance of any form of behavior, we need to be reminded of the cruciality of the cross for our faith. That's the message for this Sunday and we need to know that neither Paul nor Peter nor James could have invented this understanding of the cross as the tool of reconciliation; it came as revelation to them, as it continues to come as revelation to us. You cannot understand Christ without the cross.

Fr. Gabriel Rochelle offers a short homily for vespers on the criminality of the cross and its centrality for our faith. The cross does not represent forgiveness in our lives; it is forgiveness.

Unlike those who are famous for being famous, the Theotokos is known for two things: her faithfulness to the Word and her chosenness as the mother of our God. Fr Gabriel Rochelle explores both of these themes in reference to women in the church and to all of us as Christians who follow in her pathway.