Several years ago I was having a mild altercation with one of my high school students. He ended his presentation with this thought: “The reason I hate Catholic school is that you priests and nuns […]
Readings: • Sir. 3:17-18, 20, 28-29 • Psa. 68:4-5, 6-7, 10-11 • Heb. 12:18-19, 22-24a • Lk. 14:1, 7-14 “Humility,” the Evangelical theologian James Houston once wrote, “is moral realism.” That simple definition stuck with […]
Readings for Sunday, June 29, 2025: • Acts 12:1-11 • Psa 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9 • 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18 • Matthew 16:13-19 One denied Christ after having been chosen by him. The other was […]
Readings: • Prov 8:22-31 • Ps 8:4-5, 6-7, 8-9 • Rom 5:1-5 • Jn 16:12-15 The apologist and novelist Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957) dryly noted, in an essay titled “The Dogma is the Drama,” that for […]
Readings: Is 6:1-2a, 3-8 Ps 138:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 7-8 1 Cor 15:1-11 or 15:3-8 Lk 5:1-11 God initiates. Man responds. Jesus calls. Man answers. Such is the dynamic relationship at the heart of salvation history […]
In December 2018, I wrote an article for Catholic World Report on the Immaculate Conception: “Why I came to believe that Mary was conceived without sin.” I argued that it was (1) a matter of […]
Readings: • Acts 2:1-11 • Psa 104:1, 24, 29-30, 31, 34 • 1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13, or Gal 5:16-25 • Jn 20:19-23, or Jn 15:26-27; 16:12-15 “Spirit and fire are united—a true miracle, air and […]
“For a bishop, as God’s steward, must be blameless.”1 When Saint Paul wrote these words to Saint Titus in the first century, he was reminding Titus to be careful in his appointment of bishops for […]
Readings: • 2 Kgs 4:8-11, 14-16a • Psa 89:2-3, 16-17, 18-19 • Rom 6:3-4, 8-11 • Mt 10:37-42 A great paradox—perhaps the paradox—of Christian belief and spirituality is that true and everlasting life comes through […]
St. Teresa of Avila strongly believed that God was her great Friend, and that prayer is in large measure “an intimate sharing between friends.” One time she prayed to God, sharing with her Friend the […]
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