“I am with you always”
When I hear the words “Apostolic Penitentiary,” I don’t usually think about the maternal love of the Church (actually, I had to go to Wikipedia to look up exactly what this tribunal does when I first heard of it). However,...
Category: Reflection
Who we know God is
Recently I’ve been struck by a verse in chapter seventeen of John’s Gospel. Jesus is with his apostles during the last supper, offering a long prayer, and at one point he says to his Heavenly Father, “Now this is eternal...
“No greater love” in the time of Coronavirus
Scripture tells us, “No one has greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13.) Thus, the most famous biblical formula for martyrdom equates and balances sacrifice with a service or benefit for others. This...
An Invisible Communion
The world is currently facing a pandemic that has the potential to kill millions of people and permanently change the way we live. Not surprisingly, many employers, in efforts to promote “social distancing,” are transitioning to largely virtual office settings,...
Accompaniment as Antidote
Over the course of Pope Francis’s papacy, but particularly after the promulgation of Amoris Laetitia, some Catholics have expressed angst over what Pope Francis means when he calls for “accompaniment,” a term he uses whenever he describes ministering to those...
The desert temptations and the God of surprises
“Brothers and sisters, let us guard ourselves and be attentive to the temptation of the Father of Lies and Division, the master of separation that, tricking us into searching for a given good or answer to a specific situation, ends...
In the Desert God Restores Our Lives
“Behold the desert, place of life not of death, because to converse with the Lord in silence restores life to us.” Pope Francis, Ash Wednesday General Audience (Source: Zenit) In his weekly audience for Ash Wednesday this year, Pope Francis returned...
Be Perfect
The gospel reading today ends with Jesus summing up his great Sermon on the Mount by saying, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” We can easily misunderstand what this passage means and leave feeling like Jesus...
The Crucified Church: tensions with the flavor of the Gospel
“What’s at the root of this temptation is to think that, given so many problems and deficiencies, the best answer would be to reorganize things, make changes and especially “patches”, that would order and synchronize the life of the Church...
Living in the World
“Jesus invites us not to be afraid to live in the world even if in it one sometimes runs into conditions of conflict and sin. In face of violence, of injustice, of oppression, a Christian can’t close himself in himself...
Love, even when it’s difficult
On the day he found out he had an aggressive form of leukemia, my father received the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time in 53 years. Many faith traditions place an emphasis on atoning for wrong done. In the...
The Rest of My Life: Before and After Conversion
As I reflected today on my upcoming move to be nearer to most of my family and to some of my roots, I have had a strong feeling of denouement. Sixteen months ago, I went looking for Jesus’ Church in...
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