Tag: robert

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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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Bishop Robert Barron

Hunkering down with Benedict

Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation has certainly emerged as the most talked-about religious book of 2017. Within weeks of its publication, dozens of editorials, reviews, op-eds, and panel discussions were dedicated to it. Practically every friend and contact I have sent me something about the book and urged me to comment on it.

The very intensity of the interest in the text in one way proves Dreher’s central point, namely, that there is a widely-felt instinct that something has gone rather deeply wrong with the culture and that classical Christianity, at least in the West, is in a bit of a mess.

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On
Bishop Robert Barron

Hunkering down with Benedict

Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation has certainly emerged as the most talked-about religious book of 2017. Within weeks of its publication, dozens of editorials, reviews, op-eds, and panel discussions were dedicated to it. Practically every friend and contact I have sent me something about the book and urged me to comment on it.

The very intensity of the interest in the text in one way proves Dreher’s central point, namely, that there is a widely-felt instinct that something has gone rather deeply wrong with the culture and that classical Christianity, at least in the West, is in a bit of a mess.

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On
Bishop Robert Barron

The Case for Christ and evangelization

The Case for Christ is a film adaptation of Lee Strobel’s best-selling book of the same name, one that has made an enormous splash in Evangelical circles and beyond. It is the story of a young, ambitious (and atheist) reporter for the Chicago Tribune, who fell into a psychological and spiritual crisis when his wife became a Christian.

The scenes involving Lee and his spouse, which play out over many months of their married life, struck me as poignant and believable — and I say this with some authority, having worked with a number of couples in a similar situation.

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Robert Enright and Msgr. John Hebl

Forgiveness — the heart of mercy
Robert Enright and Msgr. John Hebl

Seventh in a series of seven articles on forgiveness.

This final forgiveness essay is a collaboration of both writers. Previously we discussed what it means and what it does not mean to forgive others; how one goes about forgiving; how forgiveness is viewed within the Catholic faith; and how it appears within schools and families.

Today, in conclusion, we will examine how forgiving might be planted for good in our communities.

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Bishop Robert Barron

Jackie and the priest in conversation

Somehow I managed to miss the film Jackie during the Christmas season, but I watched it, twice, on recent long flights to and from the east coast.

Like many others, I was struck by its moody, more “European” style, the high quality of the acting, especially on the part of Natalie Portman, and its historical verisimilitude, but what particularly impressed (and surprised) me were the scenes between Mrs. Kennedy and a sympathetic priest.

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Robert Enright

The family as forgiving community: leaving legacy of love to future generations

Robert Enright

Sixth in a series of seven articles on forgiveness.

It is so special that the Second Vatican Council referred to the family as “the domestic church” (Lumen Gentium #11).

On the Feast of the Annunciation this year (March 25), Pope Francis, in a talk to 27 heads of government, stated, “Europe finds new hope when she . . . invests in the family, which is the first and fundamental cell of society.”

Family: crossroads of our legacy

According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, it is in the family that children learn to love.

It is so sad that the family also is the first place where too many children (and adults) learn conflict and division and discord.

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Bishop Robert Barron

Lessons of suffering at Lough Derg

A few years ago, our Catholicism series film crew arrived at the shores of a large lake in far northwest Ireland, in the county of Donegal. We stepped onto a ferry and were taken to an island in the middle of the lake.

On the island was a collection of buildings, which in both architecture and color reminded me vividly of Alcatraz prison. The weather that day was horrific: temperature around 50, heavy winds, and a steady cold rainfall. Our hosts offered us tea and scones and then we made our way onto the island to begin our work.

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Robert Enright

Forgiveness education for children, adolescents

Robert Enright

Fifth in a series of seven articles on forgiveness.

All of a sudden, Martha, age 28, found herself unable to cope with life.

Until now, the challenges were few and manageable. She grew up in a stable two-parent household, was an excellent student, and graduated from a university. She married and was blessed with two young children.

Difficulty coping

Four weeks ago, her husband suddenly and unexpectedly asked for a divorce. This is something for which Martha was unprepared.

She is having trouble sleeping, sometimes is not patient with the children, and is constantly tired. She wishes to forgive, but she is unsure how to accomplish this. “I am confused, angry, and scared. I do not know how to even start forgiving him” is her honest response.

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On
Bishop Robert Barron

Theo-dramas of SS. Patrick and Joseph

I am always pleased when the feasts of St. Patrick and St. Joseph roll around every year, the first on March 17 and the second on March 19. Joseph is especially dear to the Italian people, who celebrate him with festive meals, and Patrick, of course, is specially reverenced by my own people, the Irish, who celebrate him with parades, parties, and (often) too much drinking.

Though separated by four centuries and though hailing from extremely different cultures, Patrick and Joseph have a great deal in common, spiritually speaking. For both stubbornly situated their lives in the context, not of the ego-drama, but the theo-drama, and therein lies their importance for the universal church.

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