Category Archives: Lent and Holy Week

It is part of the human experience that when we do something enough times it becomes second nature to us.  When it’s a good pattern of behavior, we call it virtue.  It’s it bad, we call it vice.  Even things that seem complicated and difficult at first can become, over time, so much a part of us thatContinue reading “Hosanna”

There’s an old saying that “the early bird catches the worm.”  In some cases, however, the early bird is just early.  I thought of that last weekend when I realized too late that I had our volunteers veil the images in our churches too early.  My apologizes for putting a damper on your Laetare Sunday!    Traditionally, the properContinue reading “Veiled Images”

I’m having a longer Lent than usual this year. Most years it begins on Ash Wednesday.  This year, however, it started on January 4 when I decided to join a small group of local men, including some parishioners, to participate in a program called Exodus 90, which basically extends Lent from its official 40 days to 90 days (the amount of time experts say it takes to form new habits).  So,Continue reading “Lessons from this Longer Lent”

posted 6/6/20 This Sunday the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.  The truth that God exists is something that one can reasonably deduce through the exercise of one’s natural intellectual gifts.  The inner life of God as a Communion of Three Divine Persons, however, is something that we know only through divine revelation.  Our imaginations are not muchContinue reading “Te Deum”

posted 4/18/20 How do we conceive of the mercy of God? It’s an important question because everything depends on His mercy.  There are two tendencies against which we have to be on guard because they distort the reality of His mercy.  We might think that He is stingy with His mercy, that He gets tired of hearing us confess the same thingsContinue reading “Divine Mercy”

posted 4/14/20 I read an interview yesterday that Catholic News Agency did with the artist Osamu Giovanni Micico.  Osamu was born in Tokyo in 1982 and from a young age had always been interested in art and drawing. In order to please his parents he originally planned on pursuing a career in the sciences, but while in university an artist encouraged him to pursue his passion, which was painting.  OsamuContinue reading “Art & the Incarnation”

posted 4/13/20 So here we are.  We have made it through the 40 day journey of Lent, we have celebrated the sacred liturgies of the Triduum, and now we find ourselves in Easter.  I must admit to you that I find it harder to accept the current quarantine/social distancing situation during Easter than I did during Lent.  In a way, the sacrifices that the precautionary measures have required ofContinue reading “Life in Eastertide 2020”

Holy Saturday is a strange “in-between” day. Our Lord’s suffering has ended, but He is not yet risen. His body lies in the tomb, observing the Sabbath rest. But where is Our Lord’s soul? Where is His spirit? Christ Jesus is God, but also man – so He has a human soul that in deathContinue reading “Holy Saturday”

posted 4/10/20 Today, Good Friday, is the day on which we contemplate the suffering and death of Our Lord on the cross.  It is also the first day in the Divine Mercy novena.  In the year 2000, St. John Paul II designated the Sunday after Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday.  He did that on the day that heContinue reading “Divine Mercy”