Incorrupt
On Ascension Thursday (5/18/23) the Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of the Apostles in Gower, Missouri transferred the coffin of Sr. Wilhelmina Lancaster from her grave in the community cemetery to a sarcophagus in their monastery chapel. What would have been a normal act of devotion to their foundress, who died on the same feast…
God is Good
“Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord!” With this reference to Psalm 89, Bishop Caggiano began his homily for the Mass last Saturday (5/20) at which he ordained six new priests for the Diocese of Bridgeport. The Bishop remarked that such an occasion should evoke songs of praise and thanksgiving from the hearts…
Warring with Spirits
Warning: this article contains spoilers about season one of “The Rings of Power” television series. If you have been looking forward to watching it, I suggest skipping to the second paragraph. “The Rings of Power” is a television series on Amazon Prime that serves as a prequel to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings…
God’s Precious Ones
If you were a member of the Church in its earliest days, one of the people you’d have thought most unlikely to become a follower of Christ was Saul of Tarsus. Saul was a Pharisee, a brilliant young scholar of the Law, and a zealous defender of his tradition. He believed the Christian sect was…
Christian Witness in Egypt
It’s not easy being Christian in Egypt. A few years ago, I came across an article by a writer named Matthew Schmitz about the zabbaleen of Cairo. The literal meaning of this word is “garbage picker,” and it refers to the residents of Mokattam Village, almost all of them Christian, who make their living collecting…
Pope Benedict XVI, R.I.P.
On February 11, 2013 I was sitting in a Roman lecture hall, taking notes and trying not to be distracted by my Australian classmate whose phone kept buzzing. Finally, he turned to me and whispered, “The Holy Father just resigned.” I looked at him skeptically, saying, “That’s not possible. Someone is pulling your leg.” A…
St. Cecilia
This Tuesday (11/22) is the feast of St. Cecilia our co-patron. Born in the third century into a wealthy Roman family, her parents arranged for her to marry a young pagan nobleman by the name of Valerius. Unbeknownst to them, however, Cecilia had become a Christian, and like many young Christian women at the time,…
God’s Plan for St. Martin
In the first thousand years of Christianity, St. Martin of Tours was one of the most widely-venerated and beloved saints in the Church. Born to pagan parents just a few years after the legalization of Christianity in 313, Martin embraced the Christian faith at an early age. As the son of a retired Roman military…
The Beautiful Life of St. Francis
In the Italian city of Assisi there is a small church named San Damiano located halfway down the hill upon which the city is built. There, in the year 1205, the young Francis knelt in prayer before a large crucifix. Suddenly, he heard the voice of Christ speaking to him from the crucifix, calling to…
Parish Potential
Next Saturday, August 13, is the feast day of Blessed Michael McGivney. Fr. McGivney is well-known for having founded the Knights of Columbus in 1882, which today is a Catholic fraternal organization that has over 2 million members worldwide, providing hundreds of millions of dollars in charitable giving as well as countless man-hours of service…
“They Glorified God in Me”
The title of this article is the phrase with which St. John Henry Newman introduces his short poem titled: “Transfiguration.” The poem is as follows: I saw thee once and nought discern’d/ for stranger to admire;/ A serious aspect, but it burn’d/ With no unearthly fire./ Again I saw, and I confess’d/ Thy speech was…
Summer Family Saints
Late July is the heart of the summer, when we spend time with family and rest in the heat of the season. This last week of the month, we celebrate the feasts of several saints, all of them laypeople, who became holy through life in the family. On Tuesday (7/26) we celebrate the feast day…
Hospitality
Since beginning my formation for priesthood as a seminarian, I have been on many retreats. The best retreat experience I ever had was at a monastery called Monte Oliveto Maggiore, which is the home of a community of Benedictine monks in the Italian region of Tuscany. For a week, I lived, ate, and prayed with…
St. Cyril of Alexandria
This Monday (6/27) is the feast of St. Cyril of Alexandria, who succeeded his uncle as bishop of that Egyptian city, and served there from 412 A.D. until his death 32 years later. St. Cyril lived during a period called the Patristic Age, which historians generally understand to have spanned the late 1st century through…
Blessing of Priesthood
Several weeks ago, I attended a Mass at which a newly-ordained deacon gave his first homily. he preached about his experience of vocational discernment, which led him to the priesthood, to which he will be ordained next year. As a boy, people asked him if he wanted to be a taxi driver like his father…
St. Mark
This Monday (4/25) is the feast day of St. Mark the Evangelist, the patron saint of Venice, whose symbol is a winged lion. Mark was born in the early 1st century and his family was prominent among the earliest Christians in Jerusalem. His uncle was St. Barnabas, who was St. Paul’s primary collaborator during his…
What It’s All About
There’s a story about a young Italian priest who was travelling by train and found himself sharing a compartment with a group of high school students. Since it was 1952 and there were no smart phones to distract them, the priest and the young people engaged in conversation. What the priest discovered through the conversation…
Sleeping St. Joseph
I was recently at the home of some friends and during dinner they were telling me about a particular challenge they were facing as a family. They told me that they were asking for the intercession of “sleeping St. Joseph.” They must have noticed the confused look on my face, because they said with surprise:…
The Memory of St. Polycarp
Years ago, prior to entering seminary, I worked in an office where, during their lunch break, a group of my co-workers would gather in the break room and watch their favorite soap opera. The show was sufficiently ridiculous to be entertaining, so occasionally I’d join them. My favorite storyline was about a character who awoke…
St. Josephine Bakhita
In 1877, a seven-year-old member of the Daju tribe in Sudan was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Her kidnappers sold her to people who treated slaves brutally, including frequent severe beatings which almost killed her. One of her owners subjected her to an excruciating process of decorative cutting, which left her chest, abdomen, and right…
St. Francis De Sales
This Monday (1/24) is the feast day of St. Francis De Sales, the Bishop of Geneva from 1602-1622. Born of a noble family, St. Francis was groomed by his father from a young age for service as an imperial magistrate. He experienced a profound conversion at the age of 19, however, which set his life on a different path. It was around that time that…
One of the Greats
In the two-thousand-year history of the Church, only two popes enjoy the honorific “The Great,” according to Church tradition. The fifth century pontiff, St. Leo is one of them (his sixth century successor, Pope St. Gregory, is the other). Prior to his election as pope at the age of 40, St. Leo was already known as a great administrator and promoter of political peace. When conflicts broke…
Dr. Irenaeus
I remember years ago doing a little research to find out if my birthday was also the feast day of a saint. When I found the answer, I said to myself in disappointment: “Who is St. Irenaeus?” As you read this, you might be saying the same thing. But these days St. Irenaeus has been making a big comeback. Just a couple of weeks ago, Pope Francis announced his…
Good Pope John
In October 1962, almost 60 years ago this month, Pope St. John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council. The First Vatican Council had been cut short and left unfinished in 1870 by the War of Italian Unification. Prior to that Council was the Council of Trent, which was the Catholic Church’s response to the crisis of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th Century. Less than 20 years…
God’s Minstrel
This Monday, October 4, is the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi (1881-1226). St. Francis is one of the most beloved saints in the Christian tradition, especially among the people of his native Italy. An Italian friend of mine once joked that Italians love St. Francis best, then comes St. Joseph, then Padre Pio, then Jesus! St. Francis captured the…
The Sacred Heart
In October 1986, Pope John Paul II made a pilgrimage to a place called Paray-le-Monial, a town in eastern France. Paray-le-Monial is called the “City of the Sacred Heart” because it was the home of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a 17th century religious sister whose visions of Christ led to widespread devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. During an audience, Pope John Paul II said…
Hearing the Call of the Shepherd
In this Sunday’s gospel, Our Lord refers to Himself as the Good Shepherd, thus inviting us to consider the mystery of vocation. The Second Vatican Council reminds us that there is a universal vocation to holiness, which means that every single person is called to be a saint. For the sake of helping people respond to the universal vocation, we believe the Lord gives a…
The Spirit Moves Us
It was my first year in seminary and I was out with my family at a restaurant in Fairfield when we ran into some old friends of ours who had lived in our neighborhood when we were growing up. Jim, the father, was interested in what I was doing and so we talked about how my experience at St. John…
The Mysticism of St. Patrick
As saints go, St. Patrick is underrated. I think that’s especially true at this time of year when we see him everywhere, advertising green beer and corned beef sandwiches, waving the tri-color while holding his shamrock-covered crozier. The real St. Patrick, who was responsible for the fifth century spread of Christianity in Ireland, was one of the greatest missionaries…
Fr. Emil Kapaun
Fr. Emil Kapaun was a Catholic priest from Kansas who served as a U.S. Army chaplain in both World War II and the Korean War. During his service in Korea he was taken prisoner and died in a Korean prison camp in 1951 at the age of 35. In 2013, he was awarded the Medal…
Who Are These People?
The Mass can sometimes feel like this: a few readings from the Bible, a sermon, a collection, the priest saying a bunch of stuff while we kneel down, the Our Father, Communion, announcements, dismissal. If this is our experience of Mass, it might surprise us that the most fascinating part of it actually takes place during the part where the priest says…
St. Blaise
February 3 (tomorrow) is the Feast of St. Blaise, a feast that always brings back memories from my days as a student at St. Theresa School in Trumbull. It seems like every year the sisters would walk us across the parking lot from the school over to the church for Mass on the Feast of St. Blaise, and we were kind of excited because we knew…
Expanding the Circle
In today’s gospel (Mk 10:1-9), Jesus sends out 72 of His followers to prepare the way for His visits to local towns, telling them to proclaim that “the Kingdom of God is at hand.” They are sent out “like lambs among wolves,” with no money or extra gear. It almost seems irresponsible of Jesus to send them out that way,…
Conversion through Beauty
Elizabeth Lev is an art historian in Rome and a highly sought-after tour guide to the Eternal City. In her book How Catholic Art Saved the Faith, she writes about the tumultuous period the 16th century. The Protestant Reformation was in full swing and Gutenberg’s printing press made it possible to disseminate information on a scale previously unimaginable. An overwhelming amount of polemical literature appeared, usually containing new and unfamiliar…
Baptism into Ordinary Time
This weekend we celebrate the 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time. If you’ve been paying attention, you might be wondering what happened to the 1st Sunday. In her wisdom, the Church makes the transition from the Season of Christmas into Ordinary Time with the celebration of the Baptism of the Lord, which we celebrated last Sunday. This is certainly fitting, because baptism is…
The Creche
The tradition of setting up a Nativity scene dates back to 1223, when St. Francis of Assisi re-created the stable of Bethlehem on the night of Christ’s birth. As this was a novelty, Francis first sought the permission of the pope himself, and was allowed to make the arrangements in a hermitage outside the little town of Greccio, located in the Italian region of Lazio. At midnight,…
Year of St. Joseph
A couple of weeks ago, on December 8, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, Pope Francis declared that 2021 would be a year dedicated to St. Joseph. Since 1870, St. Joseph has been venerated as the Universal Patron of the Church, and the Holy Father decided that this is a fitting moment in history to “go to Joseph”…
The Immaculate Conception
The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception is the feast in which we celebrate the special grace given to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was preserved from the stain of Original Sin from the moment of her conception in the womb of her mother, St. Anne. The life of grace begins for you and me at…
St. Nicholas
The Feast of St. Nicholas is tomorrow, December 6. Because it falls on a Sunday this year, we will not be celebrating his feast day at Mass. Nevertheless, since St. Nicholas is a fascinating character, so I thought it a good opportunity to share a few thoughts about him with you in this space. St. Nicholas was born in a port city…
St. Francis Xavier
After St. Paul, the greatest of all Christian missionaries was St. Francis Xavier, whose feast day we celebrate today. He was one of the original members of the Society of Jesus, and his passion for bringing the Gospel to the people of Asia was enflamed through the influence of his spiritual mentor, St. Ignatius of…
Bl. Jerzy Popieluszko
Fr. Jerzy Popieluszko was a priest who was active in the Solidarity movement in Poland in the early 1980s. He became well-known throughout Poland when his homilies, which were strongly critical of the communist state, were widely broadcast on the radio. Because he encouraged people to resist the oppressive regime, and to actively protest against it, state officials tried to intimidate him to be silent, but were unsuccessful. …
A Motherly Heart
I remember reading a biography of St. Maximilian Kolbe in which those who knew him during his life described him as having a “motherly heart.” It sounded like a strange way to describe him, but, based on their accounts, to be in the presence of Kolbe was to be consoled, such that, whatever burdens you were carrying around within you were lifted away – even the terrible burden…
St. John Paul II
Pope John Paul II was the Bishop of Rome for 27 dramatic years. Elected to the Chair of St. Peter in 1978 at the age of 58, he served the Church as the Holy Pontiff until his death in 2005. During a post-Conciliar period that coincided with dramatic cultural upheaval, Pope John Paul II was given the reins of a Church that was suffering through a crisis of confidence…
Consumed and Sustained
A friend of mine, some years ago, tried to solve what was a terrible mosquito problem in his backyard by purchasing one of those bug-zapping lights. I’m sure you’re familiar with these things. They glow with a light that bugs find irresistible, to the point that they get so close to it that they are consumed by its blazing heat. …
North American Martyrs
There is a tradition among the various national seminaries in Rome to play in a soccer tournament each year called the “Clericus Cup.” Almost every seminary fields a team, so you’ll have games in which the seminarians from the English College play the seminarians from the French College, or the seminarians who are studying at…
Let Nothing Disturb You
Today is the feast day of St. Teresa of Jesus, who was a 16th century Carmelite nun from Avila, Spain. She was, by all accounts, brilliant and charming, as well as physically beautiful. She entered the Carmelite monastery at the age of 20. At that time, the monastic life was very lax. There were always people coming…
Martha & Mary
Years ago, when I was going through my period of vocational discernment, there were times in which I felt overwhelmed by the question of what God wanted me to do with my life. I knew there was the possibility that He was offering me the priesthood, but I struggled to accept that and to risk the possibility that the priesthood…
St. Therese
Today (10/1) is the feast day of St. Therese of the Child Jesus. St. Therese grew up in Normandy, France and entered the Carmelite Monastery in Lisieux at the age of 15, where she joined two of her older sisters who had entered the community before her (her younger sister would eventually join them there too). St. Therese was canonized…
Archangel Michael
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Archangels – St. Michael, St. Gabriel, and St. Raphael. In my last posting I wrote about St. Gabriel, whose name means: “God is my strength.” Today, I’d like to consider briefly the Archangel Michael. For the past several years, according to the express wishes of Bishop Caggiano, we pray the…
Archangel Gabriel
This Tuesday is the feast day of the Archangels, among whom is our co-patron St. Gabriel. Gabriel, whose name means “strength of God,” was the great and powerful spirit charged with bearing the message of God’s favor to the lowly Virgin Mary in the town of Nazareth, 2000 years ago. After greeting her, Gabriel tells Mary of…
St Matthew
posted 9/19/20 This Monday, 9/21, is the Feast of St. Matthew the Apostle. St. Matthew is not just one of the 12 Apostles, he also the author of one of the Gospels, and he includes his own conversion story in his account of the life of Christ. We know that before encountering Christ, St. Matthew worked as a tax collector for the Roman Empire. Since it was…
Litany of Humility
posted 9/5/20 Rafael Merry del Val was a very influential figure in the Catholic Church in the beginning of the 20th Century. Born into a family of Spanish nobility in 1865, he spent much of his childhood in England before moving to Rome to study for the priesthood, to which he was ordained in 1888. From there he began serving in the…
St. Maximilian Kolbe, Missionary
posted 8/13/20 Tomorrow (8/14) is the feast day of St. Maximilian Kolbe. Kolbe was a Polish Franciscan priest who is best known for volunteering to die in place of another prisoner at Auschwitz in August, 1941. He was canonized a saint in 1982 by Pope John Paul II, who declared him a “martyr of charity” for offering his life…
The Pilgrimage of St. James
posted 7/25/20 Going on pilgrimage is an ancient Christian practice. There are old texts from Bishops encouraging the practice of pilgrimage among the faithful going back to the 4th century. Pilgrimages are not vacations, but physical journeys that manifest the spiritual journeys of those who desire to encounter God in the places where He has made His presence known in a particular way. The most…
The Lily of the Mohawks
posted 7/14/20 Today is the feast day of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American to be canonized a saint. St. Kateri was born in 1656, the daughter of a war chief of the Mohawk tribe and a Christian Algonquin mother, near present-day Auriesville, NY. It was in that same area, 10 years earlier, where the French missionaries, St.…
St. Benedict
posted 7/11/20 Today, July 11, we celebrate the feast day of St. Benedict, the patron saint of Europe. Benedict was born in the Italian town of Norcia (Nursia) in the year 480. This was a period of serious cultural decline in the waning years of the Roman Empire, and when Benedict was sent by his wealthy father to study in Rome he was…
St. Junipero Serra
posted 6/30/20 Tomorrow, July 1, is the feast day of St. Junipero Serra. In recent weeks, we’ve seen statues pulled down by activists decrying what they understand to be crimes committed by historical figures. Even prior to his canonization by Pope Francis in September 2015, St. Junipero Serra had been the subject of harsh criticism and the defacement of his image, especially in California,…
St. Peter & St. Paul
posted 6/27/20 This Monday, June 29, is the Solemnity of St. Peter & St. Paul. These two saints are the patrons of the city of Rome, where they died as martyrs for the Faith. It’s traditionally the day on which new archbishops go to Rome to receive something called the “pallium” from the pope. The pallium is a white piece of woolen…
Immaculate Heart of Mary
posted 6/20/20 Today we celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. There are two references in the Gospel of St. Luke to the heart of Our Lady. The first is the account of the shepherds who visited the place where the newborn Christ was in response to the message they had received from the angels about…
St. Therese and the Greatest Commandment
posted 6/4/20 In the Gospel for today’s Mass (Mark 12:28-34) a scribe asks Jesus: “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Our Lord responds: “The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all…
St. John Paul II
posted 5/18/20 On this day in 1920, Karol Wojtyla was born in the Polish town of Wadowice, the youngest of the three children of his parents. Today the world knows him as Pope St. John Paul II, who led the Church from 1978-2005. His family life was marked by tragedy, his siblings and his mother all having died by the time Karol was an adolescent. His father, with…
Purgatory
posted 5/15/20 Since my posting about the apparitions at Fatima a couple of days ago, some have expressed concern about Our Lady’s revelation to the visionaries that one of their friends who had recently died would be in Purgatory until the end of the world. It’s certainly a sobering message, and might be a very terrible one if…
Fatima
posted 5/13/20 On this day in 1917, the Blessed Mother appeared for the first time to three children in Fatima, Portugal. The three visionaries were Lucia dos Santos (10) and two siblings, Francisco (9) and Jacinta (7) Marto. While playing in a place called Cova da Iria, the children saw two flashes of light, after which they saw “a Lady dressed in white, more brilliant…
St. Damien
posted 5/11/20 On Oct 7, 1860, Damien de Veuster (1840-1889) lay prostrate on the floor as he was covered with a funeral pall as part of the traditional ritual for religious profession for the Belgian religious community, the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Thirteen years later, when he responded to the local bishop’s call for volunteers to…
Consubstantial
posted 5/1/20 Athanasius Contra Mundum. This is a famous Latin saying that means: “Athanasius Against the World.” The man to whom this refers is St. Athanasius of Alexandria, a 4th century bishop from Egypt who found himself embroiled in the great Arian controversy of that period. Now, it’s important to understand that 4th centry Arianism has absolutely nothing to do with the 20th century racist ideology…
The Rosary
posted 4/30/20 I remember some years ago, to celebrate the beginning of Our Lady’s month of May, we were giving out rosary beads to people as they were leaving church. One of the parishioners, a very good man in his 40s, who brought his family to Mass every Sunday, accepted a few sets of beads. Thanking me,…
St. Catherine of Siena
posted 4/25/20 St. Catherine was born in Siena, Italy in 1347. Her family was large (her parents had 25 children) and wealthy (her father was a prosperous wool-dyer). From an early age it was apparent that Catherine was different than the people around her. She had a vision of Christ at the age of six and made…
Work
posted 4/22/20 For several years in my 20s I worked for the State of Connecticut. It was a great job, and its regular hours made it perfect for someone going to school at night. I also learned a lot through my daily interactions with the public, which were often very challenging. For the most part, I found my co-workers to be extremely dedicated and hard-working…
Dealing with Anxiety
posted 3/31/20 This afternoon I was listening to a lecture by a priest named Fr. Dominic Legge, who is a member of the Order of Preachers (known also as the Dominicans) and lives in Washington, DC. His topic was Grace and Anxiety, and it was about the spiritual and emotional struggles that people feel in times of…
Fighting Boredom
posted 3/20/20 With everything being cancelled, people seem to have more time on their hands than they’re accustomed to. I think a lot of people are looking for ways to distract themselves from the stress that comes with the daily reports about the pandemic on cable news. Web streaming services like Netflix are probably seeing their traffic increase significantly, with people…
St. Joseph
posted 3/19/20 Today, March 19, is the feast of St. Joseph, husband of the Blessed Mother and the Universal Patron of the Church. It’s a day that I look forward to each year because it usually serves as a needed respite from the discipline of Lent. The Feast of St. Joseph is what’s called a “solemnity”…
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 