Author: Chris Lee

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Chris Lee

St. Joseph was an instrument of God’s mercy

Seeing with Jesus' Eyes by Fr. Donald Lange column logo

A friend sent me a Christmas card that he proudly created. It featured a picture of Mary lovingly holding the infant Jesus. Under the picture were the words, “Who is Missing?”

The answer is St. Joseph, who as the head of the Holy Family, was there to support Mary as she gave birth to Jesus on Christmas. We honor him as a great saint because he was the foster father of Jesus who with Mary guided young Jesus as he grew in wisdom, understanding, and knowledge.

Role as protector

Joseph exercised his role as protector of Mary and Jesus discreetly, humbly, and silently. He did so with an unfailing presence and fidelity, even when he found it difficult and confusing.

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The beauty of striving

Morgan Smith

On a recent trip to Florida, I went kayaking in a nature preserve. I started in the Gulf of Mexico and followed the shoreline into a creek that wove and curved through a forest of banyan trees.

Banyan trees are so mysterious. Their roots rise up out of the ground and intertwine to make the trunk and roots shoot out of the branches and reach toward the ground­­ — actually, I cannot tell exactly where the roots are originating from as they flow together in a beautiful and tangled mess.

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Priest’s mission: getting people — and God — to dinner table

fr. leo patalinghug
Chef Fr. Leo Patalinghug displays a Lenten seafood pasta meal he prepared in his Baltimore kitchen recently. The priest has started an apostolate, “Grace Before Meals,” which aims to bring families to the dinner table and bring God to the table. (CNS photo/Chaz Muth)

BALTIMORE (CNS) — For Fr. Leo Patalinghug, faith and food go hand in hand, or in cooking terms, they blend; there is no trick to folding one into the other.

“The idea of food in faith is implicit in our Scriptures. It’s implicit in our liturgical calendar,” he said, also adding that without question it’s a key component of the Mass.

Blending food and faith

The 45-year-old Filipino-American, known as the cooking priest, has made the blending of those two worlds his life’s work with his apostolate, “Grace Before Meals,” which aims, as he puts it: “to bring families to the dinner table and bring God to the table.”

He not only does a cooking show on the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) called Savoring our Faith, but he also travels across the country giving parish workshops and speaks at conferences, on radio programs, and via social media about the need for families to celebrate not just Catholic feast days but everyday meals together.

He also has written three books and is currently working on two more.

Without irony, he says there is a hunger for this ministry, noting that the parish workshops he gives are typically booked, filled with parishioners of all ages interested in how food and faith meet and on connecting or reconnecting with each other and God.

When Catholic News Service met Father Patalinghug at his Baltimore home February 24, he had just returned from a series of parish missions in California and Chicago and was about to leave the next day for the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress.

Oh, and he also was having about 30 family members over that night for dinner, so he needed to get meat in the oven and a pasta dish started.

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Who will fill these shoes?

Fr. Greg Ihm

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

There is a story that comes out of the Archdiocese of Chicago that asks a profound question. It is a story of a monsignor.

At his last weekend before retirement, he placed his shoes at the foot of the altar and after a long pause looked out and asked: “Who is going to fill these shoes now?”

This is a question that has been placed before us as a diocese as we have lost both Msgr. Monte Robinson and Fr. Larry Bowens within a week of each other.

In the past three years, we have also lost Fr. John Auby, Fr. Michael Richel, and Msgr. Felix Oehrlein, who were pastors at the time of their death.

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Catholic Multicultural Center launches updated English as a Second Language Program

MADISON — “I have lived here [in the U.S.] for 12 years. I come to the CMC to learn English because I need it for my job . . . for everything, even when you go to the store. And, to know how to speak two languages is very important.”

Gregorio is a typical student coming to English as a Second Language (ESL) classes at the Catholic Multicultural Center (CMC).

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Latin is language for Church teaching, worship

What's That All About column by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The sixth in a series by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf about the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

By now, if you have followed this series, you are probably forming an answer to “What’s that all about?” when you hear that Bishop Robert Morlino is going to celebrate a Pontifical Mass at the Throne in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

In the past few columns we explored the solemn outward style of these Masses, including the elaborate symbolic vestments and gestures, the number of ministers, and detail, decorum, and reverence.

What’s up with the Latin?

Latin is the Latin Church’s official language for teaching and for worship.

The Second Vatican Council’s document on sacred worship, Sacrosanctum Concilium, commanded that the Latin language be retained for worship (SC 36).

It required that Gregorian chant (which is in Latin) be given the primary place in our liturgical music along with polyphony (SC 116).

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