Readings for November 3, 2013: 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time Tax collectors have never been popular. But in Roman Palestine, they were particularly hated. It was bad enough that they collaborated with the foreign oppressors. It’s understandable that the Jews…
Will You Open the Door for God’s Offer of Grace?
A Brief History of All Souls’ Day
Happy Feast Day! As you are all probably aware, today we are commemorating All Souls’ Day, the companion celebration to yesterday’s Feast of All Saints. Celebrating the legacy of all our saints makes sense, but how did it come to…
All Saints Day Means Holiness is for All
Readings for November 1, 2013: Solemnity of All Saints At age 16, I thought that aspiring to holiness was out of the question. If you really wanted to be holy, I thought, you had to be a priest, nun, or…
Why Moral Relativism is Impossible
Pope Benedict XVI often spoke about the dictatorship of relativism. It is a horribly destructive moral theory that has done more damage to modern society than almost any other philosophy. You have probably encountered this in one form or another…
What is it that God wants from me?
There is no shortage of answers laid out in the Catechism or given in Scripture for this most fundamental of questions. And yet, I still find myself asking this question and wondering…with a tendency to want to skip past the…
Evangelization Frustration
I spend many hours thinking about parish programs, how to invite people to them and how to make the programs interesting. I want to give people what they want and need. But more and more, people confuse me and leave…
The Pharisee and the Publican
Readings for October 27, 2013: 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time Each year, at one of our country’s leading Catholic universities, a professor does a survey with his incoming class of students. He puts to them this question: “If you were…
What If…
I am currently conducting a study of the Book of Genesis via the Douay – Rheims Holy Bible with commentary notes by Rev George Leo Haydock. I enjoy reading this particular version of the Catholic Bible since it includes commentary…
Enemy No More
As a young girl I marveled over the host at Mass. I knew something very special was happening, but I didn’t know what. I wondered, “How does Father make that one host turn into so many?” I didn’t comprehend that…
Liturgy & Evangelization: Lessons from a Church Bulletin
I recently had a chance to attend Sunday Mass at St. Mary’s in Greenville, SC. The parish is often mentioned in the context of the New Evangelization, and I thought I’d take a look and see what the noise was…