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 […]
Amidst all the tales of chivalry from the Titanic disaster there is one that’s not often told. It is that of Fr. Thomas Byles, the Catholic priest who gave up two spots on a lifeboat in favor of offering spiritual aid to the other victims as they all went down with the “unsinkable” vessel. A […]
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 […]
Baby seals, puppies and horses all seem to have a universal ability to tug at people’s heartstrings. It’s just something about how we’re made, and Steven Spielberg’s War Horse doesn’t disappoint in that department. This film takes you on an emotional ride from the opening scene, the birth of a horse in rural England, right […]
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 Holy Thursday, the night before he died, the Lord Jesus made some startling changes in the ritual of the Passover meal. Instead of being content with the traditional Jewish table blessing over the bread, Jesus proclaimed “take and eat for this is my body.” Over the third cup of wine, known as the cup […]
A city like no other, maybe even more so this time of year. What do you call a city with a jail named Regina Coeli (Queen of Heaven)? For the last 3,000 years, you call it Rome. Forty years had passed since I had last visited Rome, broke and hitchhiking through Europe the summer after […]
As Christians around the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ this Easter, heaven is naturally on the minds of many. Recent polls indicate that between 75 and 90 percent of Americans believe that heaven exists, percentages that far exceed the belief by residents of other Western nations. As the author of “Heaven in the […]
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 […]
Meditation and Questions for Reflection or Group Discussion (Acts 10:34,37-43; Psalm 118:1-2,16-17,22-23; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-9) Allowing the Resurrection of Jesus to Strengthen Our Faith They did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead. (John 20:9) What a humble statement! Here is John, the beloved apostle, admitting that he […]
“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 […]
It has been said that the worst human sinfulness happened that day on Calvary when the creatures attempted to kill the Creator. The very people that God came to save rejected him and nailed him to the cross but in doing so they did not realize that they were rejecting themselves and the own love […]
It’s been obvious for a long time, but now it is official: the National Catholic Reporter rejects the teachings of the Catholic Church on sexuality. In an editorial titled, “NCR Endorses Call for a New Sexual Ethic,” it supports retired Australian Bishop Geoffrey Robinson’s plea for the Church to change its teachings on sexuality. Bishop […]
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 […]
Claude Guéant, the French interior minister, sparked a firestorm last month when he praised Western values as “superior” to the oppressive ones found elsewhere, namely the Islamic world. Yet the controversy did more to spotlight an area in which the West clearly trails its rivals: self-confidence. If a government official cannot extol the unique virtues […]
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. […]
