Greta Weissman, a […]
Category: Columns
St. Joseph was an instrument of God’s mercy
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.
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.
Encountering God through Mass in Extraordinary Form
The seventh and last in a series by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf about the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.
In this series we drilled into what’s up with Bishop Robert C. Morlino celebrating Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, especially when he celebrates “at the Throne.”
We have looked into what his “throne” is, the symbolic meaning of vestments, gestures, levels of solemnity, Latin. Let’s wrap this up, since by now you pretty much know “what that’s all about.”
Human organs from pigs: Is it kosher?
 |
|
Human beings can have a visceral reaction to the thought of growing human kidneys or livers inside the bodies of pigs or cows.
A participant in a recent online forum on human/animal chimeras described it this way: “Unbelievable!!! . . . If there was anything that was more anti-God it is the genetic formation of chimeras which is nothing more than Frankenstein monster creation.”
Evaluating the practice
Although the idea of a chimeric animal is indeed unusual, several factors need to be considered in evaluating the practice of growing human organs within animals.
Blasting holes through the buffered self
 |
|
Last week, during the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress, I had the enormous privilege of sharing a breakfast with Fr. Robert Spitzer, the inter-galactically smart Jesuit, who once served as president of Gonzaga University and who now directs the Magis Center on matters of faith, reason, and science.
I had just finished Spitzer’s latest book entitled The Soul’s Upward Yearning and delighted in discussing it in some detail with him.
The ‘buffered self’
This text is, in my judgment, the best challenge to what the philosopher Charles Taylor calls the “buffered self,” that is to say, a self isolated from any sense of the transcendent.
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.
Latin is language for Church teaching, worship
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).
Risen and the reality of the Resurrection
|
|
When I saw the coming attractions for the new film Risen — which deals with a Roman tribune searching for the body of Jesus after reports of the Resurrection — I thought that it would leave the audience in suspense, intrigued but unsure whether these reports were justified or not.
I was surprised and delighted to discover that the movie is, in fact, robustly Christian and substantially faithful to the Biblical account of what transpired after the death of Jesus.
Scene in the Upper Room
My favorite scene shows tribune Clavius (played by the always convincing Joseph Fiennes) bursting into the Upper Room, intent upon arresting Jesus’ most intimate followers. As he takes in the people in the room, he spies Jesus, at whose crucifixion he had presided and whose face in death he had closely examined.
But was he seeing straight? Was this even possible? He slinks down to the ground, fascinated, incredulous, wondering, anguished.
As I watched the scene unfold, the camera sweeping across the various faces, I was as puzzled as Clavius: was that really Jesus? It must indeed have been like that for the first witnesses of the Risen One, their confusion and disorientation hinted at in the Scriptures themselves: “They worshipped, but some doubted.”
The Way of the Cross continues to this day
In his strong […]