Holiness can’t be taught At a daily mass a few weeks ago, the celebrant spoke about a sentinal conversation while in the seminary. Fr. David recalled a conversation with a friend and seminarian who was two years ahead of him. The upperclassman had just returned from several months of pastoral formation with a pastor at […]
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Catholics and Bonhoeffer’s cheap grace In the early years following my conversion, I frequently entered into conversation with those who no longer attend Mass. I was living and working in Worcerster, Massachusetts and was full of zeal about my new faith. And puzzled, even saddened when the man or woman said they no longer go
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The cities of sin: the gates of Hell? A most peculiar title, isn’t it? It’s language is disquieting, even frightening, more terrfying even than Covid19 and its endless vaccines and most assuredly anti-woke. Sin… Hell… The Christian liturgical reading for last Sunday, October 24th was about the blind beggar Bartimeus. It’s one that always reaches
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Never forget our friends in heaven Upon conversion to Catholic Christianity, it was if I’d landed in another universe, one filled with women I did not recognize and could not relate to. I met joyous moms with five, seven, ten kids who seemed filled with light, life and children. Women who continued their pregnancy through to
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Sin is not in my lexicon, dear friend Modern woman and her psyche Sin is not in my lexicon, dear friend—I do what’s good, defined my way. The end. No sense of sin? Friend, then how do you knowthe right, the wrong, the which-way-to-go? Honey, I simply do what I think right:I never harm, I
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The devolution of rights into structural sin. It’s a mouthtful, I know. Certainly for me the phrase, the “devolution of rights into structural sin”, is a heady one. Until reading a piece by Jeffrey Mirus, I’d never heard of structural sin. And yet only a second or two of thought recalls the events of 9/11/01. Twenty
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Same kind of different as me, the movie “Sometimes you successful folks can rise up so high reaching for more stuff that you miss knowing God. But you can never stoop low to help somebody and have God miss knowing you”― Denver Moore I’d never heard of this film or the book and for the first
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The futility of man’s wars vs heavenly weaponry It’s been a remarkable week. “John, those people were hanging onto US planes then fell to their deaths.” “Same thing happened when we pulled out of Viet Nam,” my husband replied to me. “My clients used to tell me about the Vietnamese during the US evacuation. Certain
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Once Again: Reflections On George Bailey and It’s A Wonderful Life. This past Wednesday evening, John and I tuned into It’s A Wonderful Life . Although I wrote a piece on this film back in August, seeing it again impels another. Most of the film is composed of Clarence, George Bailey’s guardian angel, being schooled in George’s
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Thomas More, Patron saint of politicians. This past Tuesday was the Feast Day of Saint Thomas More. Sir Thomas More was Henry Vlll’s Lord Chancellor during the King’s attempts to persuade the Catholic Church to grant him an annulment. His marriage to Catherine of Aragon was invalid, claimed the King, for it had produced no
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