Our Dinner with Napa
When V. J, Tarantino and I were invited to represent WPI at a Napa Institute Salon Dinner led by the organization’s founder, Tim Busch, and his wife Steph in New York City on the Solemnity of St. Joseph, a few...
Category: Union and Communion
The Church is Not a Democracy
The Church is not a democracy. Seriously, how often have we heard this phrase? Does it not hold an honored place among ecclesial truisms, like “the Church thinks in centuries,” or “Catholics don’t sing”? Surely, in a literal sense, we...
With Faces Unveiled
It is clear in reading the Gospels that tensions ran high between Jesus and the scribes, Pharisees, and lawyers. The Gospels recount a number of instances when one or another of them “stood up to test Him.” He in His...
Keeping God at Arm’s Length: The Danger Averted by Vatican II
In reading some articles presently published on Catholic websites, one might get the impression that the story of Cain and Abel is an apt parable for the state of the Catholic Church, especially in the United States. Who is to...
Contracepting Grace
I began this series “Union and Communion” with the consideration of the increasing isolation that people experience, especially in our country. I then looked at the Biblical account of Mary’s Annunciation and of Adam and Eve, and found that isolation...
Improving On God’s Plan
In our first article in this series on Union and Communion, we considered the state of peaceful integrity in which God created the human race, and in our last article we studied how that integrity was lost through our disobedience....
Spiritual Abortion
“Like as from polished and transparent glass, Or as from water clear and luminous, Whose shallows leaves the bottom shadowless, The image of a face comes back to us… So I saw faces , many and diverse, Eager to speak.”...
The Opposite of Alone
In our previous article in this series on Union and Communion, “One Hand Clapping,” we took a look at a phenomenon that is becoming more and more widespread in our American society: social and personal isolation. The breakup of the...
One Hand Clapping
“What is the sound of one hand clapping?” This question is a well-known Buddhist koan. A koan is a question that is meant to jog the hearer’s mind out of logical thinking into enlightenment or simply into awareness. Personally, whenever...
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