The truth is that our theology of sex and gender does not reflect the actual world that God has created for us.

There is no such thing as an “LGBTQ Catholic,” or a “transgender Catholic,” or a “heterosexual Catholic,” as if our sexual appetites defined who we are; as if these designations described discrete communities of differing but equal integrity within the real ecclesial community, the body of Jesus Christ.

Ask permission of the ones whose lives you seek. Abide by the answer. Never take the first. Never take the last. Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.  Take only what you need and leave some for others. Use everything that you take.  Take only that which is given to you.  Share it, as the Earth has shared with you.  Be grateful.  Reciprocate the gift. Sustain the ones who sustain you, and the Earth will last forever.

If we understand the Earth as just a collection of objects, then apples and the land that offers them fall outside our circle of moral consideration. We tell ourselves that we can use them however we please, because their lives don’t matter. But in a worldview that understands them as persons, their lives matter very much.

When we speak of these not as things or products or commodities, but as gifts, the whole relationship changes.

The revelation in that word is a treasure for me, because it is also the root word for “gift.”

How dreadful is the state of those that are daily and hourly in the danger ofthis great wrath and infinite misery! But this is the dismal case of every soul in thiscongregation that has not been born again, however moral and strict, sober andreligious, they may otherwise be.

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, orsome loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you,

God has so many different unsearchable waysof taking wicked men out of the world and sending them to hell, that there isnothing to make it appear, that God had need to be at the expense of a miracle, orgo out of the ordinary course of his providence, to destroy any wicked man, at anymoment.

And concerning baptism, baptize this way: Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water. But if you have no living water, baptize into other water; and if you cannot do so in cold water, do so in warm. But if you have neither, pour out water three times upon the head into the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. But before the baptism let the baptizer fast, and the baptized, and whoever else can; but you shall order the baptized to fast one or two days before.

Do not hesitate to give, nor complain when you give; for you shall know who is the good repayer of the hire. Do not turn away from him who is in want; rather, share all things with your brother, and do not say that they are your own.

Turning to the relationship between religion and science, there has been a definite, though still fragile and provisional, movement towards a new and more nuanced interchange. We have begun to talk to one another on deeper levels than before, and with greater openness towards one another’s perspectives. We have begun to search together for a more thorough understanding of one another’s disciplines, with their competencies and their limitations, and especially for areas of common ground. In doing so we have uncovered important questions which concern both of us, and which are vital to the larger human community we both serve. It is crucial that this common search based on critical openness and interchange should not only continue but also grow and deepen in its quality and scope.

This drive is essentially a movement towards the kind of unity which resist homogenization and relishes diversity. Such community is determined by a common meaning and by a shared understanding that evokes a sense of mutual involvement. Two groups which may seem initially to have nothing in common can begin to enter into community with one another by discovering a common goal, and this in turn can lead to broader areas of shared understanding and concern.