Foot-washer

St. Agnes Catholic Church 7th Sunday of Ordinary Time https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022325.cfm Good evening / morning, St. Agnes. Among the Native Americans of the Great Plains, warriors would demonstrate their bravery through a practice called “counting coup.” This test of courage involved riding or running up to an enemy and touching or striking him with a hand and then retreating from danger. This act won prestige for a warrior, which could be recorded on a coup stick decorated with notches and feathers. It could also persuade and enemy to admit defeat without inflicting lasting violence on him besides injuring his pride. This form of ritual warfare was a creative way to resolve conflict among communities without engaging in devastating battles that ended in death and disability. I think about this practice when reading both our first reading and Jesus’ instruction in the Gospel to “love your enemies and do good to them.” In the first reading, David, the charismatic w...

Galt House October 11, 2024 Mercy Education Conference  Jer 22:1-4 Matt 25:31-46 In 1960, an 18-year old Black man stood over the Ohio River looking down from the Second Street Bridge two blocks east from here.  He had just returned from Rome with an Olympic gold medal around his neck.  Filled with pride, he wore the medal everywhere, expecting every door in his hometown to be open to him.  And yet, he found that in Jim Crow Kentucky, the color of his skin mattered more than the color of his medal.  It mattered more than his talent in the ring, more than the poetry than flowed from his lips, more than his good looks.  “I’m prettier than a girl,” he boasted.   The young Muhammad Ali gazed down at the muddy water—a river that had been a symbol of freedom to his ancestors fleeing slavery to the north and a symbol of hell for slaves sold down river to the cotton fields of the Deep South.  Ali took his medal and threw it into the Ohio River....