Blog
January 16, 2022
You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore to decide to be happy Her name was Jane Marczewski (Nightbirde.) And she became known when she appeared on America’s Got Talent to sing her song, “It’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok”. After performing a song which left the judges weepy and speechless, Cowell finally asked the thirty-year-old Jane how she could do this: make a song out of a disease which was killing her? Her reply? “You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore to decide to be happy.” Cowell, understandably, was dumbstruck. And then reacted by giving Jane the “Golden […]
January 9, 2022
Thinking, yet again, about the Rule of Benedict. The Prologue of the Rule of Benedict is some of the most lryical, lush and arresting prose ever written. These words from the 5th century summon, urge and admonish with utmost delicacy. L I S T E N carefully, my child,to your master’s precepts,and incline the ear of your heart (Prov. 4:20).Receive willingly and carry out effectivelyyour loving father’s advice,that by the labor of obedienceyou may return to Himfrom whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience. To you, therefore, my words are now addressed,whoever you may be,who are renouncing your […]
January 2, 2022
Football as metaphor: American Underdog Before I get to my subject of football as metaphor: American Underdog, some background about football and me may be useful- especially if football isn’t comprehensible to you. So, if you’ll permit a rollback in time, the following is excerpted from an article called 9 Lessons Tom Brady has taught me: “It was late September 30, 2001, and my new husband insisted I watch the Playoffs between his beloved Patriots and Oakland. We were living in Connecticut, cold, snowy Connecticut. I’d decided to leave my career in academic medicine where I’d built a national reputation […]
December 26, 2021
The manger: Lessons from King Ahaz If the name of Ahaz rings a bell, it’s because we hear it twice at this time of year: In the daily liturgy of Friday, December 17th in the genealogy of Jesus Christ: “…Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah…” That so unbelievably colorful and earthy lineage of Abraham and King David: the Lord’s family tree. And then a more detailed reading about the Israeli King Ahaz this past Monday: The LORD spoke to Ahaz:Ask for a sign from the Lord, your God; let it be deep as the nether world, […]
December 19, 2021
“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 has none.And whoever has food should do likewise…. Now the people were filled with expectation,and all were asking in their heartswhether John might be the Christ.John answered them all, saying,“I am baptizing you with water,but one mightier than I is coming…” Discriminating among all the […]
December 12, 2021
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 life. The film opens with a heavenly conversation among angels deliberatng about who shall be chosen to go to earth to save George Bailey: Senior Angel: [voice-over] Hello Joseph, trouble? Joseph – Angel: [voice-over] Looks like we’ll have to send someone down. There […]
December 5, 2021
Advent: Make It About The third coming. Advent, the season which begins each Sunday following the Feast of Christ, King of the Universe and the shortest of our liturgical seasons, is jam-packed with opportunites. Specifically a coming of the Lord not talked about. One that is personal and must be sought. Although I’ve read St. Bernard’s sermon countless times in the Divine Liturgy, until now, his words did not penetrate. But this week, this excerpt from one of the saint’s sermons called The Word of the Lord will come to us, phrases like “middle coming in spirit,” the “hidden coming” […]
November 28, 2021
Happy Thanksgiving: A Republic if you can keep it. It was exactly 400 years ago, in November of 1621, that something happened-some type of meal took place- between the English settlers and the Massasoit and others of the Wampanoag settlement of native Americans. The details of that shared meal in what would become Plymouth Massachusetts are fodder for contention and a variety of opinion. That fact has done little to unravel this uniquely American idea of annually giving thanks to our sovereign God-one that has persisted for four centuries. The pivotol role of the Indian Squanto or Tisquantum, in the […]
November 21, 2021
Feast of Christ the King of the Universe is the Apocalypse Yes, you’ve read the words correctly. For sure if you’d said this to me before I began researching and writing this piece about the humungous “AHA!” given to me by Bishop Robert Barron this past week, I’d have replied with something highly reasoned like, “Huh?” Or, “Come again?” Hint: we’ve got the apocalypse all wrong. Last Sunday’s Gospel portends today’s Feast of Christ, the King of the Universe. However, we need some help to methodically unpack Jesus’s words to his disciples: “In those days after that tribulationthe sun will […]
November 14, 2021
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 a local church. “How was it?” Fr. David Allen asked his friend. “Interesting, I enjoyed it.” “Did anything happen that surprised you?” “Yes, the parishioners at the church kept asking me how I’d gotten to be so holy, so content with silence. “What did I […]
November 7, 2021
Catholics and Bonhoeffer’s cheap grace Because I am outspoken about being Catholic, in the early years following my conversion, I frequently entered into conversation with those who no longer attend Mass. Almost always, the first few reasons were ideologic: “I disagree with the Church on abortion, birth control, homosexuality, and the church’s refusal to ordain women as priests” tended to head the list. Anne Rice enthusiastically and publically returned to Catholicism and then left again because of the same list. But things changed in 2016. And even more in 2020. Suddenly, Anne Rice’s objections to Catholicism were legitimized. Including even […]
October 31, 2021
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 out and grabs me. Bartimeus is the blind man sitting by the Jericho gate who annoys everyone with his increasingly loud cries begging “Jesus, have pity on me.” Bartimeus ignores all the voices who try to silence him and calls out even louder, “Jesus, have […]
October 24, 2021
For such a time as this (Esther’s Song) Until I met and became friends with Linda Hardy, I’d never heard of Marty Goetz. But once she told me about his music- the psalms put to the music in his head, I listened to many of them, often more than a few times. One day, while discussing our mutual vocations, I told Linda that I was working on the story of Esther. Later that day she texted me this glorious song by Marty and his daughter Misha. Scroll back up and listen to Marty and Misha sing, For Such a Time […]
October 17, 2021
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 the birth of a child she knew would live only hours or days. In a word, saints. Or so they seemed to me. Too far away for friendship-even conversation…unreachable. But after I read about a “conversation” between St. Teresa of Avila and Christ about the […]
October 10, 2021
In the Belly of the Whale: Jonah, The Reluctant Prophet. We’ve all been there. Alone. In the dark. Terrified. In the belly of the whale: Jonah, the reluctant prophet. Just four chapters long, the book of Jonah seems at first to be just another fantastic Bible story. Surely a wild tale, of course it’s allegory, right? And yet, Jesus Himself speaks about Jonah, calling him an “early preacher!” A fact that is both consoling and terrifying- I’ll return to this comment in a bit, first, some background. 38 Then some of the teachers of the Law and the proud religious law-keepers […]
October 3, 2021
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 give no spit, no fight. Darling, how do you know your “right” is right?Which one authority supports this might? Authority? Why ask me that? My mightis right! My kindness clearly guides my sight. What about consequence, sorrow, remorse?Sacrifices, mercy, and love, full course. Love? You […]
September 26, 2021
Take the snakes away! The reading for the September 14th celebration of the Triumph of the Cross takes us back to the nation of Israel’s escape from 400 years of slavery in Egypt to a forty-year desert journey. Complaining. Again. Not noticing the fact that their clothes and sandals are not wearing out. Or remembering how they walked through the sea with walls of water on each side. Or that water appears out of a rock when needed by them and their livestock. More and more, these readings about the ancient Israelites are like looking into a mirror which reveals […]
September 19, 2021
Ode to Hope: Todd Beamer, Pope John Paul and Peter What could a twenty-first century computer salesman, former pope, now saint and Peter, the first pope, share? What could men living millenia apart, varied cultures and relgious backgrounds have in common? Especially an ode to hope: Todd Beamer, Pope John Paul and Peter? Indeed. Do you remember Todd Beamer? His then pregnant wife Lisa? Here’s a hint. Todd’s last words ‘Let’s roll’ traveled the world. And now, upon reflecting on them twenty years later, we stop. Still. To wonder, “What would we have done?” Todd Beamer was the thirty-two-year-old Oracle […]
September 12, 2021
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 years ago yesterday. There was no question in any heart that this was evil. No disagreement between races or political parties or persons of the immensity and magnitude of it. Or of the nobility of those who gave their lives trying to save those […]
September 1, 2021
We will never win the culture war until Christians reclaim Sunday. Sunday: a day dedicated to our favorite sport, shopping, or watching movies, or…? Or to the Lord? “One of the saddest things I see is a sign on a business that says, ‘Open 7 days a week.'” So states Dr. Timothy O’Donnell, President of Christendom College in his three minute video, “Reclaiming the Lord’s Day.“ Emphasizing the vastness and pervasive materialism which has invaded much of the western world, O’Donnell quotes Pope John Paul. “We will never win the culture war until Christians reclaim Sunday.” An unequivocal statement like […]
April 15, 2014
It’s been a little over a month since I lost my best friend- a Doberman named Ally. And this is the 4th post I have written in my attempts to come to grips with the loss of this remarkable creature with whom I was graced for a little over 7 years. Over 3000 words before I felt that the tribute had been written. As I write about what I have learned, I think of one of my many teachers, CS Lewis, when he talked about experience: ‘But we learn, by the awful grace of God, we learn,’ because that’s what […]
April 17, 2014
The last couple of months have been filled with difficulties-ranging from trivial to awful. And so we decided to spend Holy Week and Easter weekend down here. I was dreading yet another series of “firsts”; this RV suffused with memories of our boy, now gone, the 4 mile walk along the ocean that the boys and I took so many times while on holiday down here over the last several years. Both Shadow and I had lots of trouble last night with those parts of this RV that were Ally’s…I could see Shadow carefully avoiding them…tough to do in less […]
June 5, 2014
Orioles and Eden Each morning, very early, I walk to the 3 areas where the Bullock Orioles dine on their meals of oranges, and a mixture of meal-worms and grape jelly. Always, I hear the staccato like chatter as they wait for their breakfast in the trees in our gardens…it is not chirping, the sound is unique to these birds. And always, I smile because I feel privileged- honored, really- that these splendid creatures come here and trust they will find the nutrition they need to nurture themselves and the babies they fly thousands of miles to have here in […]
June 17, 2014
I had been to this church in November of 2009 while in Texas to research my recently published novel; I am back to Texas to do early promotions for the book in Austin and Houston. Five years ago the parishioners in Austin were raising money to build their beautiful church and were holding Mass in an auditorium; I enjoyed the Mass but do not recall much about the liturgy or the homily. Perhaps because of the light- filled brand new St Vincent de Paul Catholic Church in northeast Austin, I am still reflecting on the homily preached by Fr. […]