Daily Mass Gospel Reflection- Ego Checking

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 01.21.23 | Aux. Bishop R. Barron

[MurphsLaw]

Friends, in today’s Gospel,
relatives of Jesus claim that he is mad.
In cases like this, the basic problem is always the fearful ego.
Ego-addicts know that sometimes the best defense is a good offense.
If you want to protect the ego and its prerogatives,
you must oppress and demoralize those around you.

There is a very unsubtle version of this method:
you attack, put down, insult, and undermine those around you.
This is the method of the bully.
But the religious version is much subtler and thus more insidious and dangerous.
It takes the law itself—
especially the moral law—and uses it to accuse and oppress.
“I know what’s right and wrong;
I know what the Church expects of us;
and I know that you are not living up to it.”

And so I accuse you;
I gossip about you; I remind you of your inadequacy.
Mind you, this is not to condemn the legitimate exercise of fraternal correction or the office of preaching
. But it’s a reminder not to be sucked into the slavery of ego addiction.
We must stay alert to this and avoid it at all costs.

[MurphsLaw]

+++Jesus came with his
disciples into the house.
Again the crowd gathered,
making it impossible for them
even to eat.
When his relatives heard of this
they set out to seize him,
for they said,
"He is out of his mind."+++

[robowombat]

Many on this site should check their nationalistic hubris. There are a lot of posters here who are not just K Street stooges who appear to be positively delighted in the Ukraine war and our growing involvement in it. Their pride in this is worse than jut flag waving they connect virtue with death and destruction and openly gloat over their vision of the destruction of Russia. This is evil pure and simple. War is the most existential action men and countries engage in and , as one GI in late 1944 told a journalistic purveyor of patriotic happy talk ‘this stuff is serious, real serious.’

[ebb tide]

Daily Mass Gospel Reflection- Ego Checking

Speaking of ego checking:

In 2022, the recently installed Bishop Barron announced plans to build a new, $8 million pastoral center in Rochester to serve as the new diocesan headquarters instead of Winona

Word on Fire, which is separate from the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, filed for a building permit this week for a “Word on Fire Rochester Studio facility on the second floor of the Wells Fargo building at 21 First St. SW. The value of the project was listed as $658,679..

Jared Zimmerer Executive Director of Word on Fire Ministry

Bishop Robert Barron’s Disturbing Musclemen Fetish is a Scandal by Itself

Fr Steven Grunow, CEO of Word on Fire Catholic Ministry

Joseph “Joey” Gloor is Bishop Robert Barron’s “Producer”