Jesus with Jonathan

To Duffy and the Church in North America: Peace and Grace from Brother Jonathan in Albany during this 11:00 AM Holy Tuesday Watch. As Epic Fury unfolds in the Middle East, we must see that Secretary Hegseth, the IRGC, and even Pope Leo XIV are each, in their own way, missing the radical depth of Matthew 26:52  ("Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him. "For all who draw the sword will die by the sword.") Hegseth and the IRGC remain locked in an operational feedback loop where the sword is the only recognizable currency of security, while Pope Leo XIV calls for its sheathing without addressing the primary sword—the daily seizure of the biosphere through our carnist economies. Hegseth risks the ultimate latecomer tragedy: winning the tactical HEU battle through sheer military force, only to lose the existential Nineveh Protocol war. By prioritizing the symptoms of nuclear brinkmanship over the root cause of our global ecological desolation, we continue t...

Greetings, Duffy. I won't add anything to N.T. Wright's excellent commentary today, especially not so soon after our wonderful spiritual friendship conversation this morning. Instead, let me shift gears to five brief "technical" observations as we start to look past Lent (to the extent we are able to lift our eyes above the Cross at all during this point in the liturgy of Holy Week!) 1. The synchronized daily reading and weekly 1:1 calls feel like our spiritual friendship retreat mode . Monthly update calls without synchronized daily reading feel like our spiritual friendship maintenance mode .  2. There is a benefit to staying in retreat mode through Eastertide, perhaps taking Saint Aelred's classic as our daily reading: Spiritual Friendship: The Classic Text with a Spiritual Commentary by Dennis Billy, C.Ss.R. (Classics With Commentary) | Kindle edition by Aelred of Rievaulx There is also a benefit to shifting into maintenance mode  from Eastertide through the ...

To Duffy and the Church in North America: Peace and Grace from Brother Jonathan in Albany during this 5:40 PM Sunset Watch of Palm Sunday. As the echoes of the "Hosannas" fade into the Albany twilight, we transition from the public theater of the palms to the interior fortress of Psalm 31. This Psalm is the essential Software of the Cross, providing the very words—"Into your hands I commit my spirit" (v. 5)—that the King will use to deconstruct the military logic of the world in the coming days. For the Vanguard, this transition is a call to move beyond the broken vessel of our own failed geopolitical gambles (v. 12) and seek refuge in the only Strong Rock that survives the collapse of the Piscean age. As we begin the final stretch of our Lenten Nineveh Protocol, let us use this week to unseal our hearts, committing our spirits not to the hoarding of "worthless idols" (v. 6), but to the non-violent, chaste surrender that alone can navigate the abyss of ana...

Greetings, Duffy in Vermont :) NT Wright's treatment of Matthew 26:14 to 27:66 on this fifth Saturday in Lent is liturgically stunning. I asked Gemini the following question: "Is there a special name in the Western Christian tradition for this 5th Saturday of Lent, and is there a liturgical reason why Wright would choose such a long portion for today's reading? Now there are only 20 verses left in the entire Gospel of Matthew, and there are still six full days in Lent (not counting Sundays) left to read them!" Gemini answered by mistakenly referring to today as Sitientes Saturday, but that was last Saturday. In the Western tradition, the Saturday before Palm Sunday does not have a special name, other than the Fifth Saturday of Lent.  Gemini was spot on otherwise. Here is what Gemini wrote (lightly edited): It may seem jarring that N.T. Wright gives you nearly two entire chapters today, only to leave you with 20 verses for the rest of Lent. However, there is a profound...

Good afternoon, Duffy. It is 4:42 PM on this Passiontide Friday in Albany. As we enter the 26th chapter of Matthew, the atmosphere shifts from the public sorting of the Sheep and the Goats to the intimate, shadowy corridors where the fate of the King is being sealed. The Saturnian Altar: Crucifying the Dream In the first movement of today’s reading (Matthew 26:1–5), we witness the collision between Neptunian Christ Consciousness and the cold, Saturnian Realpolitik of the religious establishment. Jesus has spent the previous chapters articulating a vision of universal mercy, a World Federation of the heart where the Little Ones are protected and the war horse is retired. This is the pure, idealistic Neptune—the dream of a world without borders or slaughterhouses. Yet, in the palace of Caiaphas, the Blind Guides are calculating the cost of this dream against the stability of their own institutional power. We see this same plot unfolding in the 2026 Watch of the Polis, where the visionary...

The Sorting of the Kingdom To Duffy and the Church in North America: Peace and Grace from Brother Jonathan in Albany. It is the evening of the Fifth Thursday of Lent, and we find ourselves at the climax of Jesus' public teaching in Matthew 25:31-46. Here, the King of Peace sits on His glorious throne, not to command a capture of territory, but to perform a final audit of mercy. The criterion for this sorting is shockingly simple and devastatingly physical: "What you did for the least of these." In verse 46, we encounter the finality of the transition: "And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." As we navigate the threshold between the Piscean and Aquarian ages, this verse forces us to ask: What is the nature of this eternal punishment? Is it the Eternal Conscious Torment (ECT) that has haunted the Western imagination for centuries, or is it the possible global collapse of civilization that we have discussed—the natural...

To Duffy and the Church in North America: Peace and Grace from Brother Jonathan in Albany during this 8-10 AM Lenten Watch of the Fifth Week. Today, in our retreat through Matthew, we look with urgency into the eschatological mirror that N.T. Wright offers regarding the Parable of the Talents (25:14-30). While the text had a devastating application to 1st-century Israel, the Vanguard must peer into its reflection as the "latecomers" standing at the final edge of the Piscean Age. We are not merely waiting for a passive rapture from above; we are under inspection regarding how we have managed the staggering capital of the Planetary Trust —the soil, the atmosphere, and the lives of the Little Ones—while the Master has been away. During the critical Nineveh Protocol from 2020 to 2060—humanity’s forty-year window for radical vegan eco-repentance—the Aquarian Talent given to the Church is the very biosphere and the tools of global cooperation. To be the first two servants is to ...

To Duffy and the Church in North America: Peace and Grace from Brother Jonathan in Albany. As we sit in the 4:33 PM "Watch of the Steward" on this Lenten Tuesday, our hearts are focused on the Master’s call to readiness in Matthew 24:36–51. We are learning that the faithful and wise servant is not one who merely stares at the clouds in expectation, but one who is found diligently managing the Master’s household, specifically by providing food for the others at the proper time. In our own historical moment, as we navigate the high-stakes transition from the Piscean Age of institutional seizure to the Aquarian Age of global stewardship, this proper time looks increasingly like the forty-year window of eco-repentance spanning from 2020 to 2060. To be the faithful steward today is to recognize that our current carnist economy functions like the wicked servant who beats his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, squandering the planetary inheritance on unsustainable e...

The Abomination of the Status Quo To Duffy and the Church in North America: Peace and Grace from Brother Jonathan in Albany on this Lenten Monday. Today we enter the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24:15-28), where Jesus speaks of the Abomination of Desolation standing in the Holy Place. While the Preterists see this in the Roman fires of 70 AD, and the Futurists wait for a third temple, the Vanguard sees a recurring pattern. The "Abomination" is what happens when the geopolitical status quo tries to occupy the place of the Divine—when our nationalistic idols and our carnist economies demand absolute loyalty. In the 1970s, both the scientists of the Club of Rome and the preachers of the Evangelical Rapture sensed a coming Tribulation. Today, we can rationally frame the risk of the 2040s collapse—as modeled by MIT—not as a strict necessity of God’s anger, but as the natural consequence of the transition from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius. Pisces was the age of the Two Fis...

To Duffy and the Church in North America: Peace and Grace from Brother Jonathan in Albany. On this Passion Sunday, as we enter the solemn final two weeks of Lent known as Passiontide , we find ourselves standing in the precise tension between the depths of Psalm 130 and the silent, enduring witness of the Stabat Mater. Our illustration of the UN Cross captures this specific Watch of the Heart: the Mother—representing the "Little Ones" and the "Hen" of our earlier lament—stands at the foot of a global system currently being seized by nationalistic ego, yet she refuses to meet that violence with her own. Like the polyphony of Palestrina, which brings a celestial, Aquarian order to our fractured Piscean cries, we are called to "stand" ( stabat ) in solidarity with the King of Peace, even as the old geopolitical status quo begins to groan under its own weight. I invite you to listen to this performance by VOCES8. Allow the music to bring your sentiment into ...

A Lament for America To Duffy and the Church in North America: Peace and Grace from Brother Jonathan in Albany on this Lenten Saturday. As we read the blistering Woes of Matthew 23, we must recognize that Jesus is speaking directly to the Imperial Heart of our own time. He warns against the Whitewashed Tomb of a geopolitical status quo that maintains a polished facade of rules-based order and diplomatic "mint and dill," while the interior remains full of the dead bones of an extraction-based, carnist economy. This is the Piscean pathology at its peak: an obsession with the external war horse of military supremacy while the inner life of the nation—its sustainability, its mercy for the animal kingdom, and its care for the Little Ones—is left to rot. We cannot truly win a standoff against foreign rivals if our own house is built on the sinking sand of resource depletion and spiritual vacancy. The Lament over Jerusalem is the cosmic heartbreak of a King whose offer of World...

To Duffy and the Church in North America: Peace and Grace from Brother Jonathan in Albany. It is Friday, March 20, 2026, of the fourth week of Lent, and as I write this, we are seconds away from the 10:46 AM Equinox. Our Introit for today, taken from Psalm 19:1 , captures this singular cosmic alignment perfectly: "The heavens declare the glory of God; the firmament shows his handiwork." This is not a passive observation; it is a profound cosmological declaration. At this moment of precise balance, the firmament itself shows us that God’s design is one of harmonious order. It is a signature in the stars that the old, dark Friday of Piscean sacrifice is passing, and the new Aquarian era of sustainable mercy and light is breaking through. Creation is shouting the very Gospel that our established institutions have long ignored. While the heavens declare the glory, today's reading from Matthew 22:1-14 —the Parable of the Banquet —reveals how the old geopolitical status quo is ...

The Harvest of Authority To Duffy and the Church in North America: Peace and Grace from Brother Jonathan in Albany. As the evening watch begins on this March 19th, we find ourselves at the center of a deepening storm in Jerusalem. When the elders demand to see Jesus’ authority, they are really asking for a badge that fits the geopolitical status quo. Jesus counters with the Parable of the Two Sons , exposing the hypocrisy of an establishment that says "yes" to peace with its diplomatic lips but "no" with its actual disarmament policies. He reveals that true authority is not a title you inherit or a seat at a summit; it is an action you perform. Like the son who initially refused but eventually went to work, the "latecomers"—the transformed outcasts, the born-again vegans, and the repentant of all kinds—are entering the Kingdom because they are actually doing the work of mercy while the elders remain frozen in their own Piscean bureaucracy. In the Parable o...

The Lowly King and the New Moon To Duffy and the Church in North America: Peace and Grace from Brother Jonathan in Albany. As we enter the gates of Jerusalem with Jesus, we are confronted by the jarring fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9. While the masses were scanning the horizon for a Messiah on a war horse—a Son of David who would execute a carnal, military seizure of power—Jesus arrives on a donkey's colt. He intentionally chooses the mount of peace to signal that his Kingdom is not an establishment project of the sword. In our own polarized time, where President Donald J. Trump is "key" to both sides of a fierce and exhausting debate, we must ask: Who is the true King of Peace? He is the one who refuses the war horse of partisan rage and instead rides the humble path of the vegan world federalist vanguard. He is the one who enters the UN "Temple" of our global systems not to seize them for a party or a nation, but to cleanse them for future generations. Turning o...

The Scandal of the Same Wage To Duffy and the Church in North America: Peace and Grace from Brother Jonathan in Albany. Today we stand in the Vineyard of Matthew 20, feeling the heat of the day and the weight of our own expectations. Many of us have struggled with the perceived injustice of the Master who pays the eleventh-hour latecomer the same as those who bore the burden and the heat. Yet, as we deepen our Lenten fast, we realize that this parable is the ultimate guardrail against the stumbling block of spiritual superiority. The denarius is not a reward for our labor, but the daily bread of God’s mercy—a mercy that recognizes that the latecomer who sat in the marketplace all day was suffering the poverty of waiting, just as we suffered the toil of working. For the Aquarian Vanguard, this is a call to radical spiritual solidarity. We must purge the instinct to rank ourselves based on our years of service, our vegan discipline, or our theological depth. If we begrudge the latecomer ...

The Eye of the Needle To Duffy and the Church in the Americas: Peace and Grace from Brother Jonathan in Albany. As we begin this fourth week, we find ourselves standing with the Rich Young Ruler before the impossible "Eye of the Needle." While some have tried to thin the camel into a "knot" or a "rope" to make the passage more manageable, the scholarly consensus is clear: Jesus meant exactly what He said. He used a startling, humorous hyperbole to show us that the accumulation of carnist wealth creates a gravitational pull so strong it can paralyze our capacity for the Kingdom. This is not a puzzle to be solved, but a reality to be surrendered to the God of the Impossible. In the tradition of Catholic Social Thought, this passage is read not as a condemnation of resources, but as a fierce critique of extreme inequality and a mandate for economic solidarity. Following the Universal Destination of Goods , the Church teaches that our overflowing cups are not ...

The Fourth Sunday of Lent: A Message to the Vanguard To Duffy and the Church in the Americas: Peace and Grace from Brother Jonathan in Albany on this Laetare Sunday. As we pause in the mid-Lenten desert, we rest in the green pastures of Psalm 23, but with eyes newly opened to our Aquarian calling. We recognize that the table prepared for us in verse 5 is a vegan altar of mercy, set defiantly in the presence of a carnist world that still insists on the old logic of the sword and the slaughterhouse. As Aquarian Christians, we are those whose heads have been anointed with the oil of the Spirit and whose cups overflow with the living water of a sustainable future. This overflowing cup is our signature: a life so abundant in compassion that it renders the presence of enemies irrelevant. We do not dine in fear; we dine in prophetic joy, knowing that our Shepherd is leading us out of the age of shadows and into a World Federation where the cup of life is shared by all creatures alike. The The...

I. Salutation To Duffy and the Church in the Americas: Peace and Grace from Brother Jonathan in Albany. We greet you on this Saturday morning in the third week of Lent, a day of quiet preparation for the Lord's Day as we continue our 46-day retreat. Today, we turn to Matthew 18 , a section often called the "Community Discourse." This is nothing less than the constitutional framework for how the "Mustard Seed" movement is supposed to function on the ground, and it provides some of Jesus' most difficult and essential teachings on how we are to live together. II. The Architecture of Community: The Arithmetic of Mercy (Matthew 18:1-35) Before we get to Peter's famous question about the limits of forgiveness, we must look at what Jesus establishes as the non-negotiable foundations for this community in Matthew 18:1-20. The discourse begins not with rules, but with an image: a little child. Jesus states that the Kingdom is for the humble—those who, like a chil...

The Stubborn Demon and the Mustard Seed: Why the Vanguard Fails To Duffy and the Church in the Americas and Israel: Peace and Grace from Brother Jonathan in Albany. As we arrive at this Friday of our third Lenten week, we find ourselves slightly more than halfway through our retreat, perhaps feeling the physical toll of our vegan discipline or the mental weight of a surface noise that never seems to abate. In today’s reading of Matthew 17:14-20 , we are forced to descend from the heights of the Transfiguration into the chaotic reality of the valley. It is a jarring transition: we move from the blinding light of Christ’s glory to the grinding frustration of a "faithless and perverse generation." In this scene, we encounter a father kneeling before Jesus, desperate for his son who suffers from seizures that repeatedly cast him into the fire and the water. While the ancient world saw a stubborn demon, we might look at our current global landscape and see a terrifyingly accurate ...

To Duffy and the Church in the Israel and America: Peace and Grace from Brother Jonathan in Albany. As we reach the Thursday of our third Lenten week—the precise midpoint of our forty-six-day journey—I want to offer a word of profound encouragement to the faithful across the Americas and in Israel. We are now "over the hump," and while the initial fervor of the retreat may be waning, this is exactly where the deep work of transformation begins. In today’s reading of Matthew 16:21-28, we encounter a moment of absolute seismic shock that recalibrates everything we thought we knew about power and victory. Following N.T. Wright’s lead, we see that Jesus isn't just predicting a tragedy; He is revealing a Messianic vocation that looks like total failure to the world. To feel the weight of this, imagine a contemporary parallel: suppose Prime Minister Netanyahu were to suddenly announce to his most ardent Jewish and Christian Zionist followers that, for the sake of the nation...