Newness of God
In his first Easter as the Bishop of Rome in 2013, Pope Francis preached to the congregation gathered at St. Peter’s Basilica to celebrate the great Solemnity of Our Lord’s Resurrection, saying: “Dear brothers and sisters, let us not be closed to the newness that God wants to bring into our lives! Are we often…
Palmolive
In the year 1898, the B.J. Johnson Corporation unveiled its latest product – a light-green, floating bar of soap called Palmolive. By the turn of the century, it was the world’s best-selling bath soap. Made from an alleged mixture of palm, olive, and coconut oils cultivated in southern Spain, it was marketed as the luxurious…
Being Last for Lent
This weekend marks 18 days since the start of Lent, almost halfway to Easter, and a good time to consider how well the disciplines we’ve chosen for ourselves are helping us prepare. Recently, I read an article by J.D. Flynn, a Catholic journalist and one of the founders of The Pillar, who wrote about how…
Parish Mission
This Sunday evening (3/5) we will begin our parish’s 3-day Lenten Mission. Lent is the season when we take up in a more serious and intentional way the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. In my experience, it’s hard to engage these disciplines on our own. It’s helpful when we give up dessert as…
The Color Purple
This past week we transitioned from the liturgical season of Ordinary Time to this current season of Lent. Just as the buds on trees reveal the transition from winter to spring, the warm weather and lush greenery signify the summer, the bright foliage announces the arrival of autumn, and the barren appearance of the world…
What Are We Doing for Lent?
Ready or not, it’s almost Lent. February 22 is Ash Wednesday, so if you haven’t given any thought to what you’ll be doing for Lent, now’s the time to start. If you’re wondering what we’ll be doing in the parish for Lent, below is a list of things in our calendar that we’re encouraging people…
Behind the Veil
This weekend we enter Passiontide, the final phase of the Lenten season, during which we traditionally veil statues and holy images in our churches until the Easter Vigil. I recently came across a poem by John Hart entitled, “Veiled Images at Passiontide,” which contemplates this ancient custom. A purple kite against the wall with the…
Fish on Fridays
By now, it is a well-known story. In the early 1960s, a man named Lou Groen noticed a dramatic decline in business on Fridays at his McDonald’s restaurant in Cincinnati. He realized that this was due to the city’s large Catholic population – and Catholics did not eat meat on Fridays. So, Groen approached Ray…
Lenten Disciplines
Lent 2022 kicks off this Wednesday, when together we will begin another 40-day pilgrimage to Easter. It’s about this time every year that we start giving some thought to what our Lenten discipline will be, that is, what we plan to give up for Lent. Traditionally, Catholics are called upon to do three things during…
Easter
Msgr. Luigi Giussani (1922-2005) was an Italian priest and professor of theology, who spent many years teaching in Milan but who is best known as the founder of the Communion and Liberation movement. When he died in 2005, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) preached his funeral Mass, saying: “[Msgr. Giussani] understood that Christianity is not an intellectual…
Hosanna
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 that…
Detox
The first reading for today’s Mass is from the Book of Numbers (21:4-9). Numbers is one of the first five books of the Bible, which together are called the Torah. Numbers tells the story of the Israelites after their liberation from slavery in Egypt, during their 40-year period of wandering in the desert before entering the Promised Land. In those days of wandering, they…
Veiled Images
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 proper…
Lessons from this Longer Lent
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,…
Te Deum
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 much…
Divine Mercy
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 things…
Art & the Incarnation
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. Osamu…
Life in Eastertide 2020
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 of…
Holy Saturday
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 death…
Divine Mercy
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 he…
Spy Wednesday
posted 4/8/20 Today is Spy Wednesday, the day on which the Church gives us the gospel reading that describes the conspiracy between Judas and the chief priests to have the Lord Jesus arrested and condemned to death. “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” Judas said to the chief priests. The gospel tells…
Making Our Way Home
posted 4/7/20 I was talking with one of our religious education teachers yesterday, a man very committed to that ministry, and during our conversation he told me about the last class he had before everything was suspended. By then there was already a feeling of unease about the growing threat of the Coronavirus and speculation on what measures…
The Shroud
posted 4/6/20 Yesterday the Archdiocese of Turin announced that the mysterious Shroud of Turin will be displayed for veneration on Holy Saturday. This will be just the 20th time in the known history of the shroud that it will be on display for public viewing. The Shroud of Turin is a rectangular piece of woven linen measuring 14ft.5in.…
Palm Sunday
posted 4/4/20 One of my enduring memories of Palm Sunday growing up is my father’s expressions of exasperation at the amount of palm my sisters and I would bring home from church. At the time I didn’t understand it. Why wouldn’t you want to get a big handful (or two) of palm? But looking back, I kind of get it because by the end…
Friday of Sorrows
posted 4/3/20 Today we find ourselves in the Friday of what’s called “Passiontide,” which refers to the final two weeks of Lent. Passiontide begins in dramatic fashion, with the veiling of images in our churches on the 5th Sunday of Lent. If you visit St. Cecilia Church, or watched the video of the parish Mass in St. Gabriel’s last weekend, you…
The Annunciation
posted 3/24/20 Tomorrow, 3/25, is the Feast of the Annunciation on which we celebrate the Archangel Gabriel’s announcement to the Blessed Virgin Mary that God had chosen her to be the Mother of the Savior. It’s a special day for the people of our parish for a couple of reasons – first: St. Gabriel is one of our…
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 