Last night, as I was walking on the Green in my home city, I stopped by the crèche – nestled on the rough equivalent of half a parking space ceded by the city, installed (and funded) by my hometown multinational men’s Catholic Fraternal Organization. The effect was tasteful, if a bit rococo. Continuing to...
This final section of the O Antiphon literary meditation is the true destination, where the joy and hope are realized and the most beautiful citations from the saints are to be found. (Click here for Part 1 and Part 2.) Veni, Adonai! Come, O Radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light, sun of justice:...
In this episode, I spoke with Natalie Pucillo. She recently wrote a couple of articles about her visit to Rome during the final meeting of the Synod on Synodality. Her reflections were so good, capturing both the harm and the hope she experienced. So asked if she would be on the podcast to...
As a husband of 34-plus years, I know what it’s like to come home after the end of a workday or picking up the kids from school and having news to share with my wife. Sometimes it’s good news, sometimes not so much… I mention this because the last words spoken by Elizabeth...
Catholics are human beings like everyone else. Among Catholics there is every degree of good and evil—just as, conversely, in all religions there are men of interior purity who through their myths somehow touch the great mystery and find the right way of being human. I think that we shouldn’t try to calculate...
The first installment of this literary meditation was posted on Tuesday; this second installment deals thematically with art and beauty, and with their true power. The conclusion, with its promised light and joy, will follow soon. As was the case with the first installment, I encourage everyone to listen to the spoken version that...
[This is Part 3 of the series “Religion in Society.” Click for Part 1 and Part 2.] What could the Church possibly have to learn from a 19th century radical novel that inspired Lenin and Xi Jinpeng? Well… it’s complicated. This is the story: About one hundred and sixty years ago, a man...
A Brief Meditation on Today’s Mass Readings Today’s Gospel passage is nested in a literary configuring which itself tells a story: the first two chapters, alone among the pages of Luke, recall a genre specific to early Judaism, known as a Haggadic Midrash. The priest Zechariah is wed to a woman of the tribe...
Last week, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) released Translate Hate: The Catholic Edition, a document that seeks to promote awareness of antisemitism and to equip Catholics to address it effectively within their communities. The sixty-three-page edition contains explanations of antisemitic caricatures, symbols, ideas, and language....
Any call to action, no matter how necessary and well-meaning, will devolve into platitudes unless we have some idea of when and how to put it into practice. In his 2019 motu proprio letter Vos Estis Lux Mundi, Pope Francis called for “a continuous and profound conversion of hearts… attested by concrete and...
Through the Church—the sacrament of God’s infinite love—her Scriptures, her Tradition, her prayers, and her liturgies, people can encounter the living Christ and experience his love, healing, and transformative grace. But what happens when the men and women tasked with mediating God’s grace, appointed to preach God’s word and preside over the sacraments,...
[Author’s note: This piece explores, through the lens of my own experience, humanity’s need for salvation, with all our impulse to creativity and self-determining possibility for good or for ill. The piece requires patience, as it is not until the end that the light comes. I am including a recording of my reading...
Popular Posts