God is never arbitrary
This reflection on the Sunday readings for March 7, 2021 (the Third Sunday in Lent) was written by Fr. Daniel J. Merz, SLD. Fr. Dan is a priest of the Jefferson City diocese and currently serves as the pastor of the...
Category: Reflection
Hope for Iraqis: A Chaldean Catholic Anticipates Francis’s Visit
While growing up in Canada, I vividly remember a moment that occurred during my elementary school’s lunch recess. Our prayer group, which met every Wednesday to say the Rosary, was just finishing up when a friend noticed a hung portrait...
I Stopped Doomscrolling to Find My Right Mind
One of the frequent complaints we hear these days is about the dangers of an internet insularity. It was one of Pope Francis’ brilliant points in Fratelli Tutti, that digital media has often created the illusion of relationship and connection...
Tradition and the Individual Vocation
In the first week of Lent I learned a lot from the Fratelli Tutti Study Guide, which I chose as a focus for these forty days. Still blinking in the sunlight after breaking free from the radical traditionalist (or “rad-trad”)...
An Image of Communion
Some of my best memories have taken place around a table. Birthday parties, holiday meals, dinners with friends and family at home or at a restaurant. Food is an essential part of our physical lives but sharing meals is an...
Willing the Good: A survivor’s call for restorative justice
TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains descriptions of sexual assault and violence that may be triggering to survivors. The last three popes have called for the abolition of the death penalty. In 2018, Pope Francis revised the official teaching of the...
The Known Unknown
A reflection on the Sunday readings for February 26, 2021 — the Second Sunday in Lent There are things we know, there are things we don’t know, and then there is the unknown. The things we know help us to...
The Path of Interior Silence: A Haibun Lenten reflection
The later-afternoon sky fills with cirrus clouds again. The expected snow has not yet arrived, but my rheumatic joints inform me that it’s only a matter of time. That will mean yet another turn at the snow-thrower, gripping it tightly...
“Blessed Are They Who Mourn” in the Time of COVID-19
Over 502,000 people have now lost their lives to Covid-19 since the first case was reported in the United States. The numbers of those sickened and who have died are staggering. It’s easy to become numb to the reality they...
A new world after the pandemic: Let Us Dream
During the better part of the past year, we have found ourselves engulfed in a crisis situation that has affected all of humanity. The Covid-19 pandemic and all of its side effects have converged in a crisis that we did...
Tenderness as a Test-strip for Truth
Over the past year, I have heard a lot of people–most of whom are fellow Catholics–lamenting the difficulty of discerning the truth about current events. What really happened, and how can we know? Some people are genuinely confused about how...
‘Driven’ Into the Wilderness with Christ
A reflection on the Sunday readings for February 21, 2021 — the First Sunday in Lent Yesterday, I celebrated the funeral of the woman who gave me my favorite Lent story. She was a very pious woman and had a great...
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