BERLIN — Fr. John Tourangeau, OPraem, who had an afterlife experience following a major heart attack, emphatically states, “Heaven is for real!”
Within this enlightening and hope-filled presentation, Father Tourangeau weaves a powerful and dynamic tapestry of the Kingdom of God at hand — heaven — through exploration of Christian tradition, Sacred Scripture, Catholic teaching, and personal experience.
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Matt Spicer’s dark comedy Ingrid Goes West is a telling and penetrating critique of the iPhone culture that has swallowed up so many young people today.
Now I know: I have an evangelical ministry that uses social media and reaches out through iPhones and other similar devices. Moreover, I have been known from time to time even to use such instruments personally.
So I’m not going to use this review as an excuse for a broad brush dismissal of social media. But I will indeed use it to encourage you to see this film, which artfully explores the shadow side of living in virtual reality.
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Editor’s note: George Weigel wrote this column from Jerusalem.
Walking through the narrow, winding streets of Jerusalems Old City on my first visit here in 15 years, I was powerfully struck once again by the grittiness of Christianity, the palpable connection between the faith and the quotidian realities of life.
For here, as in no other place, the believer, the skeptic, and the “searcher” are confronted with a fact: Christianity began, not with a pious story or “narrative,” but with the reality of transformed lives.
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I hope each of you enjoyed a very blessed Feast of the Ascension this past weekend, and with you I continue to look forward to the Feast of Pentecost! I noted last week that we, as a Church, are already turned in our hearts and in our minds toward Pentecost and, certainly, with the Ascension of the Lord, we become even more alert in our anticipation of the descent of the Holy Spirit.
As we look at St. Luke’s description of the Ascension, we notice that, interestingly, the “two men clothed in white” who appeared to the apostles after Jesus ascended say to them, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand here, staring up into the heavens? This Jesus, whom you see, going up into heaven will return the same way as you just saw Him go into the heavens.” What does it mean that Jesus will return “in the same way?”
