The Gift of Growing Old
I remember an incident that happened at a 5 p.m. Mass, the first time I ever preached at the parish at which I am stationed. It was 2008, the year I was ordained a deacon. Just before the Mass, I...
Tagged: spiritual life
Be Prepared
A reflection on the Readings for Sunday, November 12 — The Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time Every time we are going to start something—a new project, a rehearsal, a new chapter—it always requires of us that we prepare properly to...
Holiness is Relational
A reflection on the Scripture Readings for February 19, 2023 — the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time. Click here for the audio version. How many of you think that you are perfect? How many of you think you are holy? This...
The Whole Christ
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”[1] The Catholic Church has often been criticized for promoting a religion of dos and don’ts, a religion...
Reconciliation, Renewal, and Rebirth
Advent is a time of preparation, a time of celebration, and a time of reflection. If our minds and hearts are truly focused on the season as a time of preparation for the birth of Christ, then we must enter...
The Improvised Life
This article is dedicated to Paul Fahey who by a post published on SmartCatholics galvanized some volatile thoughts to come together and form an article. Thank you, Paul! I enjoy reading articles about science–when they are written in a way...
Turning Moments of Temptation into Moments of Strength
Temptations are real. Temptations are inevitable. Temptations are an everyday affair. Yet, we do not spend too much time reflecting on them. This is because our focus is on avoiding temptations rather than succumbing to them. The Gospels, however, tell...
The Antidote to Self-absorbed Promethean Neopelagianism
In Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis discusses how “spiritual worldliness” can creep into the Church. He writes: This worldliness can be fuelled in two deeply interrelated ways. One is the attraction of gnosticism, a purely subjective faith whose only interest is...
The Double Standard of the Enchanted World
“There are ancient limitations from which fairy-stories offer a sort of escape, and old ambitions and desires (touching the very roots of fantasy) to which they offer a kind of satisfaction and consolation. Some are pardonable weaknesses or curiosities: such...
Loneliness Today, Part VIII: Loneliness and Solitude
The previous installment of “Loneliness Today” touched on the potential spiritually beneficial aspects of loneliness. It discussed the literary or symbolic place (topos) of the “desert” and cited Simone Weil’s controversial assertion that Christianity seeks a supernatural use for suffering...
Loneliness Today, Part VII: Going into the Desert
Initially, this installment of “Loneliness Today” was going to be about either the loneliness faced by parish priests (who, in the age of COVID-19, I’m sure miss public celebrations of the Mass just as much as we do) or the...
Pope Francis: “I have never been asked this question before”
Pope Francis’s travels receive a great deal of media coverage. From his public celebrations of Holy Mass to his audiences with world leaders; to his visits with the local sick or imprisoned; to his comments aboard the airplane and his...
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