The glorious story of Eric Liddell will soon grace a London stage just as issues of conscience make headlines with Christians defending religious freedom from coercion. Chariots of Fire, the Oscar-winning film of Olympic runner Eric Liddell’s refusal to race on the Sabbath, is being adapted into a play to usher in the 2010 Olympics […]
When Charles W. “Chuck” Colson died last week, the headlines screamed about the death of President Richard Nixon’s “hatchet man,” who tumbled from his perch as White House chief counsel after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice in 1974. Some squeezed in fleeting references to the way Colson spent the second half of his life, […]
I am a cradle Catholic, but my family was not very good about going to confession regularly. It is possible that because my parish priest growing up was beyond liberal, my parents wanted me nowhere near him. Or maybe my liberal parish didn’t offer confession regularly. (The attached school made us say, “In the name […]
When it was evening, his disciples went down to the sea, embarked in a boat, and went across the sea to Capernaum. It had already grown dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea was stirred up because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, […]
Meditation and Questions for Reflection or Group Discussion (Acts 4:8-12; Psalm 118:1,8-9,21-23,26,29; 1 John 3:1-2; John 10:11-18) Knowing and Experiencing the Love of Our Heavenly Father “We are God’s children.” (1 John 3:2) What a radical statement! How awesome it is that we mere mortals are children of the eternal, almighty God! What could be […]
As I pulled out of the high school parking lot yesterday after dropping off my daughter, I noticed a long line of cars waiting to turn in. Blinking turn signals flickered in the early morning light and I couldn’t help but notice how the traffic had exploded since the time I had arrived. My daughter […]
The poor remodeler, he was so uncomfortable that I thought he might break into a sweat. In fact, he might already have been sweating, but I dared not look too closely, lest my scrutiny escalate his discomfort. He’d come to bid on our kitchen reconstruction and walked into more than he’d bargained for. However, the […]
If you ask Jack Hannahan what he’s thankful for, be prepared to listen for a while. Hannahan, 32, has plenty to appreciate, starting with the realization of his dream of playing in the major leagues. In 2001, he was named Big Ten Player of the Year at the University of Minnesota and was drafted in […]
This Good Friday, I was struck by the beginning of the Divine Mercy Novena, in which Jesus asks us to bring Him all sinners. I found this message especially appropriate for Good Friday, because it drives home the truth that Jesus died for everyone. So often lately, we seem to have forgotten that Jesus died […]
I am always here – 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year – waiting for you. But generally I am alone, abandoned and ignored. So when I looked out from behind the closed doors this morning, I was overjoyed to see you-so many of you. While there were many […]
I try so hard to have faith, but I have never figured out the best way to take kids to Mass. I mean, on the one hand, there’s the Real Presence, and taking your children to see the Miracle that redeems mankind is unquestionably of utmost importance. But on the other hand, there’s the mental […]
“Social issues.” It’s a squishy, equivocal term suited to a mentality ill at ease with the hard-edged implications of “moral issues” and “morality.” What implications? That there are definite moral truths that show some things to be always and everywhere wrong and deserving of condemnation. Not what the “social issues” mindset cares to hear. There’s […]
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps. (1 Peter 2:21) There are many, many lessons to be learned in the example Christ left for us in his suffering. One of those, I believe, is a lesson in how […]
On Good Friday many of us will try and fail to comprehend the sacrifice Jesus made for us on the Cross. How can we comprehend such suffering? What in our lives can ever compare to the horrors of the Passion? The Crucifixion was bad enough but there was also the Scourging and the Crowning with […]
“So it is ourselves that we must spread under Christ’s feet, not coats or lifeless branches or shoots of trees, matter which wastes away and delights the eye only for a few brief hours. “But we have clothed ourselves with Christ’s grace, or with the whole Christ … so let us spread ourselves like coats […]
Life without God is madness. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the absurd world of modern “art.” In 1985, Jeff Koons assembled a work that consisted of three basketballs submerged in a fish tank. It symbolized, he proclaimed during one interview, “pre-birth”, “equilibrium,” “the eternal,” and “life after death,” among other things. It eventually […]
Archbishop Charles Chaput has written one of the most insightful pieces of our time on modern journalism and the role, or should I say, “non-role” of religion in today’s public square. His searing piece, A Heart on Fire: Catholic Witness and the Next America, is a must read for all those who seek to live […]
We Catholics tend to shy away from spiritual vulnerability, a kind of real intimacy and relationship. We suspect emotionalism — a kind of fluctuating faith anchored in ever-changing emotions. That’s for “those evangelicals” whom we perceive to go from church to church, high to high, we think. For many of us, faith is about being a good solider. […]
My favorite food is peanut butter. I eat it every day. I don’t need bread or jelly—I eat it from the jar with a spoon. Every year I think about quitting during Lent but I never do. Like an addict, I cannot think about life without peanut butter but I know life cannot go […]
During Pope Benedict XVI’s General Audience on March 14 about praying with Mary, he pointed out times in Mary’s life that were pivotal to salvation history and in which she demonstrated particular aspects of prayer. When I read the Pope’s words, I was inspired to take them a step further and to explore ways in […]
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? […]
The association of being a Christian and a Catholic comes with a great personal responsibility. It is no doubt an expectation of those who know us to be a Christian that we act like one. This is a natural expectation. People seem to lose the focus about what they expect from a Christian when it […]
Ezekiel, caught up in the Spirit of God, has a vision of the Temple. Water pours from beneath the Temple threshold. This water is clean and live-giving, restoring everything it touches. It flows east, east toward Eden, so that the garden may be purified and man redeemed. Ezekiel does not realize that this Temple is […]
Meditation and Questions for Reflection or Group Discussion (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51:3-4,12-15; Hebrews 5:7-9; John 12:20-33) Bearing Much Fruit for the Kingdom of God “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” (John 12:24) Have you ever […]
