It’s a few minutes past sunset, and I’m writing this reflection from the lobby of an atrium-style hotel in Norman, Okla.
The 24th annual In the Father’s Footsteps Catholic Men’s Conference has drawn to a close.
Category: Columns
Jesus, I’m learning to Trust in You
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| Susan Swanke |
When Jesus appeared to St. Faustina and shared his message of Divine Mercy, the words he instructed her to put at the bottom of his image were, “Jesus, I trust in you.”
No subtle hint. Jesus wants us to trust him. Why is it so important to him that we trust him? Surely, it’s not because he needs our trust for his good.
In fact, God needs nothing. It must be for our good that he gives this command.Easter brings meaning to our lives forever
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Victor Frankl, a world-famous Austrian psychiatrist, who survived a Nazi concentration camp noticed that those who survived the camp tended to have something or someone to live for!
Hence the expression, “A person with a why can live with any how!”
Christ was born to bring hope to us, to make life more meaningful in this world, and then offer us the hope of Eternity.
Approach the Triduum with childlike wonder
On my nephew’s birthday long ago, when I was sleeping over at my sister’s house, I was awakened by my wide-eyed nephew tearing through the house.
As the penitent, so the confessor
There is a saying in the seminary: “As the seminarian, so the priest.” While I have thought about this phrase many times during my years in formation, it has recently taken on a new light.
Jesus lets Simon help him
This Lent, my parish has been focusing on the character of Simon of Cyrene along Jesus’ walk to Calvary.
Lent: A time to remember who we are, what we are, and whose we are
Ash Wednesday marked the most I had seen people in church since the lockdown and since the beginning of our reopening efforts.
Only Jesus can show us how to carry our crosses
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“Look!” my husband said proudly one evening. “I fixed it for you!”
He held up my favorite handheld kitchen tool, the stainless-steel pastry cutter, and pulled on it to illustrate that he had fixed its broken handle.
To his dismay, the handle pulled apart in his hand.
Let’s receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation during Lent
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A college student wrote in her school newspaper that sometimes she wished that she were a Catholic. She explained that if she were a Catholic, when she sinned, she could go to confession like her Catholic classmates and say, “Father, I sinned. I am sorry!”
The priest would then give her a penance. She would do the penance and feel forgiven.
She added, “But I’m not a Catholic. When I sin, I don’t confess to a priest. I confess directly to God.”
Thinking about green burial
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Death: Our Birth into Eternal life Damian Lenshek |
The following article is the next installment in a series that will appear in the Catholic Herald to offer catechesis and formation concerning end of life decisions, dying, death, funerals, and burial of the dead from the Catholic perspective.
St. Anthony the Great had a problem. He was 105 years old, he lived in fourth-century Egypt, and he was famous.
He did not want to be embalmed. But the common practice at the death of eminent personages such as himself was to preserve them, pose them on couches, and to keep them in their houses.
This was intended to honor the deceased.