Meditation and Questions for Reflection or Group Discussion (Isaiah 25:6-10; Psalm 23; Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20; Matthew 22:1-14) Accepting God’s Invitation to His Heavenly Wedding Banquet Many are invited, but few are chosen. (Matthew 22:14) “Don’t touch the stove; it will burn your fingers!” “Don’t cross the street until you look both ways.” Just as […]
We have often heard the quotation, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” The correct quote reads, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” This quote comes from the Inaugural address of Franklin D Roosevelt in 1932. Right after the infamous stock market crash of 1929, which led to the Great […]
I attended the opening night of Courageous with some trepidation. I had seen Fireproof, made by the same filmmakers, and I had not cared for it. Fireproof was just “okay” and I gave it an “A for Effort,” but, to my mind, the Christian message was too on-the-nose. But, last Friday night, some friends wanted […]
First of all, then, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity. This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come […]
In the mid-1980’s, I spent a lot of time with Michelle, a seventeen year-old parishioner who suffered from a terminal brain tumor. In the last weeks of her life on Earth, I visited with her every day. It’s difficult to declare God’s love to a dying teenager and her family. It was a humbling way […]
There are all kind of theories floating around about what life must have been like between Adam and Eve and the animals in the pre-fall Garden of Eden, but I wonder if it looked quite a bit like what I saw at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium last week. This impressive facility is the real-world setting […]
September 30, 420 saw the death of the Latin Church Father St. Jerome and hence September 30th is his feast day. Jerome spent the last half of his life rendering the Scriptures into the contemporary Latin of his day. Since Latin was at that time, the common or “vulgar” tongue, his translation was called the […]
God is love, therefore we exist. The Divine Goodness is the pulsing root of all things. We are created for communion with Him, conjured from nothingness to behold the Beautiful One. Creation is a great romance: “For You love all the things that exist” (Wisdom 11:24). The God of Jacob is not merely the Craftsman, […]
In the tradition of Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, cross-cultural comparisons can sometimes provide insights to which we, as citizens, might be blind. A recent visitor to our parish in metropolitan Seattle, Father Kiiza Justus of Uganda, granted me an interview.[i] . Uganda — “the pearl of Africa” — has the youngest population in the […]
The Lord said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites: On the first day of the seventh month you shall keep a Sabbath rest, with a sacred assembly and with the trumpet blasts as a reminder; you shall then do no sort of work, and you shall offer the oblation to the Lord.” (Leviticus 23:23-25) I’m embarrassed […]
Meditation and Questions for Reflection or Group Discussion (Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:9,12-16,19-20; Philippians 4:6-9; Matthew 21:33-43) Overcoming Our Anxieties by Receiving God’s Peace Have no anxiety at all. (Philippians 4:6) Is Paul serious? How can any of us live an anxiety-free life? Doesn’t he know how hard life can get? Yes, he does! He even […]
As a young boy growing up a popular phrase taught was “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” This advice proved to be very useful in my childhood and very handy when as an adult I became a Police Officer and dealt with a barrage of inappropriate names from […]
