MAYDAY
Perhaps it was an irrational aversion to Morris-dancing that made me almost prefer the Communist celebration of May 1st. Maypoles I could perhaps bear; but the sight of men dressed in psychiatric...
View ArticleApocalypse Now
In the 1990s, my then-12-year-old and I were praying a nightly rosary during his father’s lengthy unemployment. This was in the years running up to the new millennium, when the Y2K scare and related...
View ArticleGod, Good, and Good-Enough Fathers
I have not read Harper Lee’s just released Go Set a Watchman, her sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, and I’ve decided not to do so. That’s because I cannot bear to give up Scout’s father Atticus, as...
View ArticleWhat do (Catholic) women want?
Sigmund Freud is remembered for many reasons, but one of his most quoted remarks is this: “The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my...
View ArticleWater from the Rock
Sometime around, oh, 3300 years ago, Moses leaned out from Mt. Nebo in Jordan – as I just did a few days ago – and looked over into the Promised Land. Paul VI, St. John Paul II, and Benedict XVI made a...
View ArticleAngels and Their Hierarchies
The Bible frequently mentions Angels, Archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim, and as we recall at Christmas even names some of the most important angels such as Gabriel, who carried God’s message to a...
View ArticleStories to Live By
Besides having the narrative of our own lives to deal with, other narratives are constantly being urged upon us, begging for our notice – often with all kinds of tricks to demand our attention. Buy...
View ArticleA Christmas Baptism in Exile
During the last week of Advent, a beautiful, seven-week-old baby girl was baptized at a Redemptorist parish in downtown Bangkok, Thailand. It was no ordinary baptism. This little girl – who remained...
View ArticleHere Comes That Dreamer
We study the Christmas story in part because we are supposed to imitate its good actors and avoid the sins of the bad actors. Or call it the Christmas “history” rather than “story,” because it really...
View ArticleAdvent and Reform
November’s meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is behind us, even if the frustration of it is not. Pope Francis’s meeting with the heads of the world’s episcopal conferences won’t take...
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