The days before Christmas found people rushing to buy “perfect” gifts. A variety of advertisements and news reports displayed store shelves that sought to satisfy with overflowing abundance. Many shoppers even tried to complete the task by clicking from the comfort of a home computer. Flushed with determination, and maybe the best of intentions, perhaps you found that the quest for a perfect gift transformed into a necessity to impress this Christmas season, and you may have entertained...
Over lunch this week with a long-time client, the blessing I said at the beginning of the meal sparked an interesting conversation. This human resources executive smiled as I made the sign of the cross at the end, and said, “Well, I don’t see this every day. I can’t remember the last time I said a blessing over a meal at a business lunch.”
Once again in my experience, the simple act of saying a blessing over a meal in public prompted a conversation about faith in the public...
A constant reality during the Season of Advent is Christmas art. Our mailboxes fill with religious cards displaying choirs of announcing angels, the Holy Family, maybe even the Three Wise Men. Admittedly, the avalanche of so many images may most times blur our senses like a heavy blizzard.
Which makes it all the more special when one of them holds your gaze, causes you to stop and take a breath (or two!) in awe, and appreciate deep within the real reason for the season.
“Mother of...
Sexting, drugs, alcohol, cyber-bullying, teen suicide, rampant materialism, technology addiction, and me-first mindsets. The list of challenges to young people today can seem overwhelming. As parents of two boys under the age of 16, I feel like my wife and I are on the front lines of a never-ending war for the very souls of our children. I would love to tell you that we always make the right decisions, but some days I am not so sure.
My wife and I often feel worn out from the daily...
This week the Church ends its liturgical year by celebrating the Solemnity of Christ the King. It is a prominent feast day that speaks with as much truth now as it did when first established in 1925.
Nationalism and secularism – equally strong, both aggressive – marched around the globe during the brief period between the First and Second World Wars (1919-1939). In his 1925 encyclical, Quas Primas, Pope Pius XI diagnosed the roots of such movements as “the majority of men (having)...
As we pass through the early weeks of this Year of Faith, it is well to recall the oft-repeated words of Blessed Mother Teresa: God calls us not to be successful, but faithful.
It’s easy to think that this message is meant for others, not for me. After all, we all want success – in the name of God, of course. We work hard, we pray, we try to live out the teachings of the Church and hand the faith on to our children. We may even have an apostolate, such as teaching CCD, singing in the...
As the Year of Faith continues, the 2005 introduction to the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, written by the present pope as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, can help us learn more about our faith. Catholics can explore the broad contours of their faith and, over time, use it to introduce to the world the treasures of Catholicism.
The introduction explains three important features about the Compendium:
First, the Compendium is reliable because its contents are based...
We are all likely familiar with the “walk to Emmaus” by two of Christ’s disciples the evening of the Resurrection. (Luke 24:13-35) These two men, overcome with hopelessness and discouragement, were talking about the incredible events they had witnessed over the previous few days as they were walking to their home village of Emmaus outside of Jerusalem.
As I read this Gospel passage in Eucharistic adoration the other day, I was struck by the parallels with our modern world. These two men...
By Jason Godin
Americans have an opportunity periodically to vote. It is a right that has justly evolved over time to include more citizens. To vote is also a responsibility, a civic duty secured in the face of shared sufferings at home and aboard throughout United States history.
Shared sufferings have long found a place in the history of Christianity, too. St. Peter likened the devil who stirs up such sorrows to a hungry lion on the prowl. Calling for sobriety and vigilance at all times,...
Last week I had the extraordinary privilege of meeting one of the true pioneers of the pro-life movement. Unlike most of those who were shocked into action by the 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton Supreme Court decisions imposing abortion on demand on the country, the man I met was actually in a position to do something more than speak out, protest, and write his congressman. At the time, he was the Conservative U.S. senator from New York – that’s right, the state has a viable...
