The culture of Lent: Ash Wednesday Is Lent a culture? Really? When considering the word culture, we understand it signifies a cumulative deposit of knowledge, beliefs, values, notions of time and of roles. So yes, the upcoming forty days embodies a “culture of Lent.” One that I aim to inhale more completely this year than […]
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Thinking about holiness: its simplicity Wednesday was All Saints Day and Thursday, All Souls Day. Each November 1st and 2nd, we celebrate our friends in Heaven and pray for those who wait in Purgatory as we begin this month of the dead. Depressing? Morbid? Yeah, both if we ignore the reality–our bodies will die. But
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Deeply invested in blindness: we are all Jews now. The sobering, jolting truth of a phase penned by Liel Liebowitz: we are all Jews now, shouts out to us. “Maybe it was the spirited conversation, or maybe just the spirits served liberally throughout the evening, but at some point I turned to my friends, raised my
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The Patron Saint of Politicians: Thomas More In the year 2000, then Pope John Paul ll declared that many leaders of nations, states, and governments had asked him to proclaim Saint Thomas More the Patron of Statesmen and politicians. The Pope’s Apostolic Letter which details the proclamation, begins: The life and martyrdom of Saint Thomas More have
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The distinctly separate natures of women and men “Wait—Are you saying that there’s no difference between men and women? “That the sole difference between the sexes is anatomic and biologic?” The air was suddenly charged. And the easy energy between us gone. Startled and confused, I said, “Well, yes, of course…” But my words faded
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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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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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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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Have we got it wrong: Heaven on Earth? Is heaven a place far away? Only habitable by the dead? Or could it be attainable here? On earth…in this life? Many, perhaps a majority, of us look at our life on earth as something to be endured. Perhaps a cosmic test of some kind. Increasing numbers
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The Corporate Reality of Prayer Although I had never conceived of the Mystical Body of Christ, a few pieces of the massive chessboard of the mystery of God clicked into place. All at once. We were all connected, all of us. Even if the virtual arteries and connective tissue had narrowed, even closed, due to
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