Category Archives: Other

posted 7/18/20 Robert P. George is the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, where he has taught since 1985.  The grandson of immigrants who worked in the coal mines of West Virginia, George is known as one of the nation’s leading conservative intellectuals.  As a practicing Catholic who holds views considered “conservative” on many issues, George’s outspoken critiques of abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, pornography, large-scale government welfare programs, and human trafficking often putContinue reading “Good Teacher”

posted 7/2/20 Today’s gospel is St. Matthew’s account of Jesus’ healing of the paralytic in the town of Capernaum (Mt 9:1-8).  The afflicted man is brought to Our Lord by his friends, lying on a stretcher.  “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Courage, child, your sins are forgiven.’” I wonder if there wasn’tContinue reading “The Paralytic”

posted 6/25/20 When I was a kid, I liked to read the copy of The Children’s Bible, which was first published by Golden Press in the 1960s.  Even before I learned to read, the pictures depicting the Bible stories fascinated me, especially those of the Old Testament.  In my mind I can still see the picture of the animals entering Noah’s Ark asContinue reading “Images of God”

posted 6/23/20 The first reading for today’s Mass is from the Second Book of Kings (2 Kings 19:9-36).  It is an account of the siege of Jerusalem that took place about 700 years before the birth of Christ.  The ruler of the Assyrian Empire, King Sennacherib, had already conquered the northern Kingdom of Israel and sent 10 of the Israelite tribesContinue reading “The Narrow Gate”

posted 6/19/20 On a hill overlooking the city of Paris is the Basilica of Sacre-Coeur, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  It is a modern structure, whose construction began in 1875 and was completed in 1914.  Because of the outbreak of the First World War, it was not consecrated until 1917.  Probably the most remarkable thing aboutContinue reading “Sacred Heart of Jesus”

posted 6/5/20 There are times when I’ll be at a family gathering, the adults sitting at the dining room table and the kids playing somewhere (everywhere) else, and inevitably one of the children will come over and bury himself/herself in the side of his/her mother or father. It could be for a multitude of reasons.  It could be the kid is unhappy because someone wasContinue reading “Finding Refuge”

posted 6/3/20 Today is the feast day of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions, 22 young Ugandan men who were put to death for the faith in 1886.  While doing some research on these young saints, I came across a video that Bishop Robert Barron did on the Ugandan Martyrs and it’s much better than anything I could comeContinue reading “The Ugandan Martyrs”

posted 6/2/20 When he was arrested in February 1945 on a trumped-up charge of having committed crimes against the Soviet Union, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was forced to march along with several other detained Soviet soldiers and a German civilian from the jail where they had been processed to the prison which would be their new home.  Solzhenitsyn, an officer in the Soviet Army, wasContinue reading “The Human Heart”

posted 6/1/20 There’s a couple I’ve known for many years – I’ll call them Fred and Jane.  They met each other not long after the untimely deaths of their first spouses.  Jane had children with her first husband, and Fred also had children, including a young son with severe disabilities.  I remember a conversation with Jane when she told me about the time she first metContinue reading “Mother of the Church”

posted 5/20/20 The wallpaper image on my smartphone is a photo that I took of another photo that was part of an exhibit during World Youth Day in 2016.  It’s a black and white image of a young Missionary of Charity bathing the emaciated body of a woman whom the sisters rescued from dying on the streetsContinue reading “The Love of God”