Reminding Me Where I’ve Come From
Story-telling is a thing right now, but it wasn’t when I sent a one-minute pitch to The Moth in 2013. I had been listening to the Moth on public radio stations for years: “True stories, told live, no notes.” And...
Category: Reflection
Reflection on the death of Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais
On October 8, 2024, Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais died, at the age of 79. He was one of the four bishops consecrated illicitly and against the express will of Pope St. John Paul II by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and...
Marriage as a Work of Beauty
I’m an amateur artist. I love color, and I’ve always appreciated talented artists and their work. Sadly, I’m not a talented artist myself, nor have I been formally trained. The reason I paint is that my spiritual director, in the...
If your eye causes you to stumble
“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off, and if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out.” The hand, the foot, and the eye: three things...
A time for every thing under the heavens
A Reflection on Today’s Readings Recently, I was playing a form of Bible roulette. If you have not heard the term before, it is a reference to when someone points to a random verse in the Bible and tries to...
Twice blessed: Women in Ministry in the Church
About a year and a half ago, I wrote an article on the Samaritan woman of the Gospels in connection with the Holy Father’s 2021 opening of the ordinary ministry of acolyte and lector to women of good character. Taken alongside his establishment of...
A Summary Catechism on Extraordinary Phenomena
When the world is in greatest confusion, visionaries become oracles. Panic, like every other passion, blinds the intelligence of man, and he is glad to take refuge from everything that bewilders him by giving it a ‘supernatural’ interpretation. -Fr. Marie...
With a Person, the Whole is Always Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts
I have never done a DNA test and I probably never will, but I don’t need one to know that I am an ethnical hodge-podge. On one side, I am descended from Italians from the south of Italy along the...
Find Yourself a Faith
I have little use for the British royalty. I really don’t. I could care less who is in line for what role, and who is feuding with whom. It’s hard for me to believe that the British Parliament forks over...
Literature and Values
Catholicism’s literary tradition is the envy of many other religions. It extends from medieval verse epics right through to modern novels. Pope Francis acknowledged this earlier this month in an interesting letter on “the role of literature in formation,” primarily...
To be poor in love is to be truly destitute
There is a saying that I often ponder: “Tell me what you love, and I will tell you who you are.” This is very close to Jesus’ statement, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Matt. 6,...
Do You Want To Be Healed?
This is the third article in the series “Spiritual Challenges.” In the first article, “Lessons From a Bowl of Jello,” I presented my opinion that one cause of the turmoil after Vatican II is that we had not let ourselves...
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