In September, Pope Francis celebrated “the blessing of long life” with thousands of senior citizens and their families.
In his homily that day, he spoke about the Visitation of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth, calling it “a Gospel of encounter.”
The pope encouraged those present — and through them, all of us — to follow Mary’s example and re-establish a covenant between the young and the old.
Last month and for the second year in a row, I went on a private retreat. Basically, I took some time off from everything in my life, spent a weekend at an area retreat center, and used my self-imposed “free time” to pray, read, reflect, (and sometimes nap!).
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In my capacity as theologian, teacher, and culture commentator, I’ve been reading articles on ethical matters for years and have grown relatively inured to the expression of even the most outrageous points of view.
But a few years ago, I came across a piece that was so shocking that I was compelled, as I read it, to put the magazine down several times and just shake my head in disbelief.
It was an article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine called “The Two Minus One Pregnancy,” dealing with the phenomenon of “reducing” (love the Orwellian language) a pregnancy from two children to one.
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Sometimes we appreciate more fully what we have when we see what others don’t have; yet, they are more thankful than us who have much more.
Matt Hasselbeck learned this the hard way. He was a Boston College sophomore who was going nowhere in football. Worse yet, he got in his coaches’ doghouse when he volunteered for the missions in Jamaica during spring break.
When Matt saw the poverty in the missions, he experienced cultural shock. At a prayer meeting, he heard someone enthusiastically thank God for his blessings. The person was George McVee, a leper who was so disfigured that Matt avoided him. He wondered what George had to be thankful for. He had no money, nose, feet, or hands; yet, he was thankful. His gratitude helped Matt to appreciate his cornucopia of blessings.
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In the sixth chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel, we find the account of Jesus sending out the Twelve, two by two, on mission.
The first thing he gave them, Mark tells us, was “authority over unclean spirits.” And the first pastoral act that they performed was to “drive out many demons.”
When I was coming of age in the ’60s and ’70s, it was common, even in seminaries, to dismiss such talk as primitive superstition — or perhaps to modernize it and make it a literary device using symbolic language evocative of the struggle with evil in the abstract.
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Controversies surrounding the recent Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family have put me in mind of Blessed John Henry Newman, the greatest Catholic churchman of the 19th century.
Newman wrote eloquently on many topics, but the arguments around the synod compel us to look at his work regarding the evolution of doctrine.
When he was at mid-career and in the process of converting from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism, Newman penned a masterpiece entitled On the Development of Christian Doctrine.
As we wind down the year, we seem to hear of more and more people who are dealing with illness and hospitalization.
What is my […]
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Just last month, my media ministry Word on Fire marked a milestone: 10,000,000 views on our YouTube channel.
This achievement fills me with gratitude both to God and to the many people who watched one or more of the videos I’ve produced. It also provides the occasion for me to reflect a bit on both the pitfalls and advantages of evangelizing through the new media.
When we commenced our outreach through YouTube seven years ago, we did so in the manner of an experiment. YouTube had just come into being at that time, and it largely featured crude, homemade videos of cats jumping off the roof and babies gurgling for their mother’s camcorder.
I thought we should try to invade this space with the Gospel, and so I resolved to make short video commentaries on movies, music, current affairs, cultural happenings, etc.
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On August 4, 2013, a 19-year-old girl named Katie Lentz got in a serious accident along a Missouri highway.
She was barely clinging to life, and her vital signs were fading when she asked rescue workers to pray with her. Suddenly a priest appeared from nowhere. A rescue worker welcomed him with the words, “Father, we need all the help we can get now!”
The priest prayed, anointed the girl, and gave her absolution. Fire Chief Raymond Reed said that after the anointing, a peaceful calmness seemed to come over the girl and rescue workers. When he turned to thank the priest, he was gone.
The unknown priest became known as the angel or mystery priest. Eventually his identity was discovered. His name is Fr. Patrick Dowling. He told ABC News, “I have no doubt the Most High answered the prayers of Katie and the rescue workers. I was part of God’s answer, but only part.” Katie survived and is in the long process of recovering.
