Category: Columns

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Bishop Robert Barron

Silence and the meaning of the Mass

Robert Cardinal Sarah’s recent book The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise explores a number of themes both theological and spiritual, all centering around the unhappy role that noise has come to play in our culture and more specifically in the Church.

His observations are most trenchant in regard to the liturgy, which should come as no great surprise, given his role as head of the Vatican Congregation devoted to liturgy and sacraments. As I read the sections of his book dealing with the importance of silence during Mass, I often found myself nodding vigorously.

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Bishop Robert Barron

A message of love for the confirmandi

One of the greatest privileges I have as a bishop is the opportunity to preside at the Sacrament of Confirmation. A drawback, however, is that I am obligated to conduct over 40 Confirmations in roughly a two month period — which means that I become tired, rather quickly, of my own homily!

As a result, I’m frequently shifting gears, trying out new ideas, looking at the complex phenomenon of Confirmation from a variety of angles. I want to share with you in this article some of the key ideas in the latest iteration of my Confirmation sermon.

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William T. McKenna

Preventing teen suicide both in community and home

Ask DMU

After the 13 Reasons Why debut that dramatizes the reasons behind one teen girl’s suicide, there has been a significant amount of discussion regarding teenage suicide and preventing such actions.

Some authors have debated whether or not the Netflix series will harm or help adolescents when navigating both their own and their peers’ feelings regarding this important topic.

Here, however, I wish to discuss ways that you can identify whether or not your teen (or an adolescent you know) is at risk for taking their life, and then what you can do to help.

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Bishop Robert Barron

History lessons of Our Lady of Fatima

This past week, we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady to a group of shepherd children near the Portuguese town of Fatima. The series of Fatima appearances — lasting from May until October of 1917 — is one of the most extraordinary in the history of the Church.

It has also beguiled political and cultural commentators outside the ambit of the Church, and it is this wider implication that I would like to explore.

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Bishop Robert Barron

How to preach like the Apostles

I have always loved the Acts of the Apostles and have often recommended it to those who are approaching the Bible for the first time. Filled with colorful narratives, adventure, martyrdom, persecution, journeys by sea, etc., it makes for stimulating reading indeed.

But I love it especially because it shows us the excitement of being a follower of Jesus. Long before there were parishes and dioceses and the Vatican and other institutional structures, there was this band of brothers and sisters who were so overwhelmed and energized by the fact of the resurrection that they went careening around the world and to their deaths with the message of Jesus.

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Tony Magliano

Our common home really needs your help!

“A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system,” warns Pope Francis in his landmark environmental encyclical Laudato Si’ (“On Care for Our Common Home”).

Indeed, the scientific consensus is very solid. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), “97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities.” (see: http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consen us/).

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Bishop Robert Barron

Pride, humility, and social media

On a recent trip to Sacramento, from my home base in the LA area, I flew Southwest Airlines. In an idle moment, I reached for the magazine in the seatback pocket and commenced to leaf through it.

I came across an article by a woman named Sarah Menkedick entitled “Unfiltered: How Motherhood Interrupted My Relationship with Social Media.” The piece was not only wittily and engagingly written; it also spoke to some pretty profound truths about our cultural situation today and the generation that has come of age under the influence of the Internet.

She argues that to have swum in the sea of Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube from the time that one was a child was to live one’s life perpetually in front of an audience. Most millenials never simply had experiences; they were conditioned to record, preserve, and present those experiences to a following who were invited to like what they saw, to comment on it, to respond to it.

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Julianne Nornberg

Honoring our earthly and spiritual mothers

Everyday Faith column by Julianne Nornberg

Whether you are one, have one, or are married to one, mothers affect every person in the world.

My eight siblings and I have been blessed with a very gentle mother who simply and genuinely reflects many of the same characteristics of Our Blessed Mother.

Lasting memories

My earliest memory of my mom was when I was “helping” her bake a cake by moving the small plastic containers of decorative sprinkles from one side of the kitchen to the other.

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