Throughout more than thirty years with degenerative multiple sclerosis there have been horrible times with the disease that dragged me to deep levels of sickness I did not think were possible. The terrors often came in the darkest nights when exhaustion was at its greatest and I was at the end of my tether emotionally […]
Does the Bible still have relevance? All that guidance and those stories of 2,000 years ago and longer – do they mean anything today? They should, of course – especially the things Jesus taught. Loving God with every fiber of your being, loving your neighbor as you love yourself, forgiving countless times. Laying down your […]
I have many ways to begin prayer, with numerous different motivations. Lately, God has been providing a certain motivation without my consciously asking for it. Ultimately, it’s almost always about finding peace. Before I get to that, let me share some of the ways I like to pray. There are times when I wish to […]
My best female friend is a non-practicing Catholic. Like many lapsed Catholics, she attends Mass twice a year (Christmas and Easter). Though she has no genuine faith, she at least still appreciates Catholicism culturally, which is why she had a Catholic wedding, is supportive of our celibate priests, and ferries her kids to CCD at her local […]
Meditation and Questions for Reflection or Group Discussion Mass Readings: 1st Reading: Acts 3:13-15, 17-19 2nd Reading: 1 John 2:1-5 Responsorial: Psalm 4:2, 4, 7-9 Gospel: Luke 24:35-48 Opening Our Minds and Hearts to God’s Glorious Plan He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. (Luke 24:45) We all know what it feels like when […]
I have more than 1,100 friends on Facebook. Are they all really my friends? Fair question. My wife and children frequently voice their doubts that I even know that many people, much less can call that many people friends. My family has challenged me with this: “How many of those people, if they died, would […]
At the Abbey of Gethsemane in New Haven, Kentucky, the bell tower of the monastery chimed at three a.m. like Big Ben, shaking me from my bed. A seismic shift. What’s up with these monks? Why do they pray so early? Because it’s their charism, the horarium of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict […]
At the beginning of Lent our pastor gave everyone in our parish some homework to do. He asked us to read the Gospel of Mark. He wanted us to first just read through the entire gospel once and then to go back and read it a second time with a particular purpose in mind. He […]
Why, Lord, did you give me this father, this mother, this brother, this sister, this son, this daughter, this relative, this in-law, this person, this acquaintance, this alleged friend? Why did you do this to me? Why did you put them in my life? Why did you put me in their lives? I do not […]
I love silence. I crave it sometimes, especially in a world that seems filled with noise 24/7. Radios and TVs, alarm clocks and iPods, CD players and Youtube, telephones and cell phones and people talking-talking-talking wherever we go. It can be a challenge to hear God’s voice over all of that noise. We might try […]
This verse in the Book of Acts brings an image to my mind of a street activist holding a sign with these words scrawled across it — a scenario many would turn away from. But those who heard St. Peter’s speech at Pentecost were “cut to the heart by it,” and that day three thousand were baptized […]
John Mark was only a boy when he met Jesus. His mother Mary, a prominent member of the seventy disciples who followed Jesus throughout his three-year ministry, opened her home to the Lord and his Apostles. In the upper room of Mary’s house they held the Last Supper. Six weeks later the Apostles and Mary […]
The older I get, the more time I spend enduring medical exams and “procedures.” Never willing to waste time, I often pray in my moments alone while waiting. I’m also fond of chatting up and observing people. That can provide flashes of grace. Recently, I was laying on a hospital bed in expectation of being […]
In his remarkably profound book, Lift Up You Heart, Bishop Fulton Sheen said, “The Cross is the most inescapable reality of life. If we will not accept it outside of ourselves, to pardon us and to heal, then we will have it inside, as frustration and despair.” The life changing reality of Calvary has been […]
There are two kinds of stories. Someone goes on a journey. A stranger comes to town. Often these storytelling techniques occur simultaneously. For instance: years ago, the kind words of a Cuban rosary warrior named Rosemary Sharpe spurred me to begin anew my journey to the priesthood. One morning I was praying in the chapel […]
Our third son married his beloved fianceé just over 2 weeks ago. What a beautiful day it was. Everything was perfect. Family and friends were in town from both sides, great jubilation saturated the air. The weeks leading up to the wedding were filled with expectation and busyness. I remember a prayer I had raised […]
We are in Holy Week 2015, so it is most appropriate to consider the problem of evil and sin. The sacrificial Passion, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ was to settle with God the problem of human sin and evil. I have often heard the question, “If there is a God, why does he permit […]
Not long ago, I did an exercise in which four words were listed horizontally and I had to rank them as they applied to me by giving a “4” to the one most descriptive of myself down to “1” for the least descriptive of me. For example, the first list of words was: independent, compassionate, […]
Having spent most of my life as an atheist (I converted just 13 years ago), I have a good basis of comparison for the difference between Catholic and non-Catholic life. And without a doubt, these seven things are WAY better now that I’m Catholic! Reprinted with permission from CatholicSistas.com. 1. WEEKENDS My husband and I spent three […]
Our marriage vows reflect the fidelity of God’s love for us. The obligations of the marriage covenant – fidelity, love open to new life, and lifelong sexual exclusivity – ask a lot of another as it assumes a lot about ourselves. Too often we make promises we don’t keep, overextend our commitments, or intend fidelity […]
Ite ad Joseph! (Go to Joseph!) It’s the great Latin admonition of the Church, to seek the intercession of the Patron Saint of the Church, and a powerful intercessor at that. Against the backdrop of the new aggressive eugenics that has taken solid root in American medicine, and against the war on the Catholic Church […]
Today is the Feast of St. Joseph. He is special to us because he was special to Jesus. I would like to reflect on a title from the Litany of St. Joseph: Lover of Poverty. As Catholics, Jesus teaches that we are to be poor in spirit. St. Joseph is a wonderful example of this […]
In those days, all the princes of Judah, the priests, and the people added infidelity to infidelity, practicing all the abominations of the nations and polluting the Lord’s temple, which he consecrated in Jerusalem (2 Chr 36:14). This is what happens when faith falls out of fashion. The Israelites learned that the hard way. Is […]
Maurice Ravel’s Pianoforte Concerto for the left hand was written for Austrian pianist, Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in the 1st World War. Imagine Wittgenstein’s grief! Music was the center of his world. He grew up in a prominent Viennese household visited by composers such as Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler, and Richard Straus: […]
