You also can't trust those Christmas carols

Some years ago I was told--probably during a sermon--that there weren't three wise men--there were three types of gifts to honor the new born king. So a 19th century minister came up with "We three kings of Orient are/ bearing gifts we traverse afar. . ." Then during Advent our senior pastor preached on the meaning of the carols, and I discovered the Bible doesn't say the angels sang. Nope. They said. Kind of takes the fun out of it, doesn't it? We think we're singing right along with the angels, and they weren't even humming! Also, the Bible doesn't say Mary travelled on a donkey either. Wow, that ruins a lot of Christmas cards and pagents, doesn't it?

Then this week I was listening to Father Mitch Pacwa, S.J. preach about St. Paul. It's apparently the 2000 anniversary of his birth--although they don't know exactly--and there was a special series on the sacraments. I listened to the one on baptism, and learned all sorts of things. Did you know Paul's letters in the New Testament are arranged by size? I didn't. The longest is first, so to look at what he said chronologically about baptism he cited 1 Cor 6:9-11, 12:12-13, Gal. 3:23-27, Romans 6:3, then Col. 2. Also he said St. Paul never spoke about Hell, never condemned anyone to go there, but Jesus spoke a lot about it. I guess I'd never thought about it before, and to think Paul gets all the bad press for being cranky. Along the way he mentioned that 8,000,000 Muslims in Africa convert to Christianity each year, and there's been a large increase among the Kurds. The sermon is about 48 minutes, and quite interesting, although I'm not sure why. He must have quite a following because he has his own web site and program on EWTN.

Given in the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Birmingham, AL on September 4, 2008. Part I: Baptism in Saint Paul's Writings