Emergency! Prayer, Paradox, and Matthew McConaughey “Who is your doctor?” The replies to my “I don’t have one” ranged from an incredulous, frustrated “Well, you’re sure going to have one now!” to “You remind me of my seventy-four-year-old Dad, he’s healthy as a horse and has never seen a doctor.” The absence of a doctor […]
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Feast of Christ the King of the Universe: The Holiness of Ordinary People Just a few moments of reflection about the state of the world in 1925 compels us to stop. And think very hard about the inspiration which led Pope Pius Xl to proclaim the Sunday ending the liturgical year in the Christian liturgy as the
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Gratitude: What is it? The word gratitude doesn’t resemble what it signifies. Both the noun gratitude and its adverb grateful seem passive, inert, and easily overlooked. In a world where so many billions live in conditions that would be considered unacceptable in the US, our excesses seem almost immoral. But many Americans seem incapable of
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Doubt Isn’t the Opposite of Faith Fear is. Father Eric Ritter’s comment, “Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; fear is,” remains in my mind days after I heard him preach the homily for Saint Matthew’s Tuesday 6 AM Mass. The Gospel passage for Tuesday was: As Jesus got into a boat, his disciples followed him.Suddenly
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Thinking of another early July: Gettysburg Michael Shaara’s magnificent historical novel, Killer Angels, is required reading at West Point Academy and should be required in all American colleges. Why? There are countless reasons I write this but primarily two. When we reflect on the extraordinary history of America, “We should kneel down in gratitude!” Secondly,
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A Lost Lamb and The Good Shepherd I wrote the following piece almost ten years ago. When it suddenly popped up mid-last week, I read it, and the memories of that hike flooded back. I decided its content contains essential lessons for this past Sunday’s Feast of the Good Shepherd: The lone lamb suddenly appeared
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A joyous Lent? It isn’t something that can be understand easily. This past Wednesday, the liturgical churches left ordinary time to enter forty penitential days in the desert with Christ. Today’s Gospel reading returns to the Baptism of the Lord and the beginning of Jesus’ three-year journey to the Cross. The Gospel of Mark starkly
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A nation founded on thanksgiving. Only because of Edward Winslow’s letter do we know of the first American thanksgiving turkey dinner in 1621. Mayflower passenger Winslow, was the leader of the Plymouth colony and would later serve three tems as governor of Massachusetts. Certifying the astoundingly friendly alliance beteen the Indianss and English colonists, Winslow
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I wrote this article over two years ago. This looming election begs for reflection on our nation and its unarguably providential origins. And so biographer David McCoullough’s words warrant meditation. We should kneel down in gratitude! McCoullough’s comment, “We should kneel down in gratitude!” applies, of course, to more than the personage of George Washington.
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Shall we build three tents: Tu Es Petras It’s always a surprise to me when The Feast of the Transfiguration rolls around on August sixth. It’s not so on the second Sunday in Lent when we once again celebrate the transfigured Jesus on Mount Tabor. On that Sunday, it feels like the goalpost we each
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