Dear Fr. Nay,

There are Gospels that are stranger than necessary

Better for an English speaking audience: Some Gospels are more difficult for us to understand than others.

“in the middle of the night”

We ordinarily sleep at night. The master comes in the middle of the night, in my view, means that he comes deliberately while we are sleeping in order to wake us up from our sleep. Not the sleep that nature demands of our bodies at night, but the sleep that we live most of our “waking” hours. This is the state of walking sleep that we work, play, educate, raise families and live the majority of our lives. It's the sleep that keeps us focused on temporal matters rather than the eternal. It's the same kind of sleep that the apostles were guilty of at Gethsemane.

There were a few minor hand contortions today.