Epiphany: What does it mean again? “You have had an epiphany,” remarked my friend when I told her about my decision to become a Catholic Christian. Although my friend Adele’s comment occured a couple of decades ago now, I think of it on this day we celebrate Epiphany. Perhaps I’d heard the word before but […]
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November’s the month of the dead “I continue to think that we start from very different places on the question of death itself, what it is and what, if anything comes after it…I have trouble getting myself to the point where I believe that anything happens to the individual after death. I can’t get beyond,
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The battleground of conscience That phrase seems oxymoronic—contradictory—the battleground of conscience, I know. But once I began rereading Fr. Jacques Phillipe’s Searching for and Maintaining Peace, there’s no better metaphor. But first, some brief background. The first chapter of this Fr. Phillippe’s book says it all: “Without Me you can do nothing….(John 15:5) He didn’t say,
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Forgiveness, ignorance and redemption We pray it every day. “…Forgive us as we forgive those who…” But too often, the routinized words fall from my lips and disappear into the petty details of the day’s tasks. I know well the essential correlation between forgiveness and redemption in my own life and therefore I’ve written about
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Best way to disempower evil: Look at it Bishop Robert Barron’s sermon for the first Sunday of Lent- Three Levels of Temptation– is on St. Luke’s account of the temptations of Christ in the desert. Within the first few minutes of his homily, he says, “The best way to disempower evil: to look at it, to
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No man can tame the tongue I should probably title this one “Part Two” because it’s inadvertently a continuation of the article that posted last Sunday on the epistle of James. The daily reading for Saturday February 19th’s Christian liturgy was again, St. James. The phrase, “No man can tame the tongue” shouted at me. And impelled
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The business of sin Until I listened to Fr. Alphonse’s homily at daily mass, I’d never thought of sin as a business. But the moment I heard his phrase, “the business of sin,” I knew the truth of the statement. As did the three others I commented to following the mass. His remarks followed the reading from
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Sin doesn’t come first- we get it backwards! This past Sunday’s Gospel was St. Luke’s account of Simon’s-he who would become Peter- first encounter with Christ. St. Luke provides many details. So many in fact, that it’s easy to place ourselves there. And because of that, to write about witnessing Peter’s catch. But there’s even more here!
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What have you got to do with me? “…Catching sight of Jesus from a distance,he ran up and prostrated himself before him,crying out in a loud voice,“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” It’s a very strange Gospel passage: The one for this past Monday in the Christian
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“What should we do?” At last Sunday’s mass, we heard the cries of the people inflamed by the words of the Baptizer. On fire with the truth he had incited in their hearts, they cried, “What should we do?” John the Baptist said to them in reply,“Whoever has two cloaksshould share with the person who
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