Confirmed in the Spirit
This Thursday evening (May 26), 68 young men and women from our parish will receive the sacrament of Confirmation at the hands of Bishop Frank Caggiano. With the reception of this sacrament, they will be fully initiated members of the Catholic Church, and will have received an increase and a deepening of what they first…
Confirmed in the Spirit
This Wednesday (5/26), Bishop Caggiano will be coming to confirm 23 young men and women of our parish. It’s a lovely thing to have Confirmations so soon after celebrating Pentecost, the great feast on which the Church commemorates the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the world 50 days after Easter. As part of the liturgy of Pentecost, the Church gives us…
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…
Understanding and Misunderstanding
I’ve been re-reading a book by Caryll Houselander called The Reed of God, which is a really beautiful book filled with great insights into the spiritual life, with the Blessed Mother held up as the spiritual master par excellence. In the chapter entitled “Fiat,” Houselander writes about the effect of our surrendering ourselves to the will of God, noting that it simultaneously brings both greater understanding and greater…
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…
Come, Holy Spirit
There was a priest with whom I used to meet for occasional spiritual direction, named Fr. Mike. During a conversation one day, Fr. Mike told me about a habit that he had developed over the years. Any time he encountered someone whom he sensed was in distress or sad or anxious, or if he passed…
The Gift of Fear of the Lord
As a kid some of my favorite books were C.S. Lewis’ series, The Chronicles of Narnia. If you’re familiar with the stories you know that the greatest of the characters in the novels is, of course, Aslan the Lion. The philosopher Peter Kreeft has said that Lewis accomplished something remarkable when he created a literary character who makes the reader feel like…
The Gift of Piety
posted 5/29/20 Sometimes on my day off I will go to visit one of my sisters who lives in Fairfield. She has five children, so bedtime is not usually the best time for me to stop by. But it’s very nice when the kids are all settled in and I get there in time to say prayers with the family before…
The Gift of Knowledge
posted 5/28/20 Several winters ago, my sister went to a place called White Horse, Canada with her husband. While they were there, she took a bunch of photographs, including some of the Northern Lights, which were on full display. She had a copy of one of the photos blown up and framed, and it now hangs on the wall of…
The Gift of Fortitude
posted 5/27/20 Maximilian Kolbe was a man who demonstrated great courage and charity throughout his life. Born in Poland in 1894, he went on to be a Franciscan priest. He established several monasteries and was also a very successful publisher of religious pamphlets promoting devotion to the Blessed Mother. When Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Kolbe used his publishing…
The Gift of Counsel
posted 5/26/20 When a priest hears confessions, there are occasions when he hears himself say something to the penitent that surprises him. When that’s happened to me, I think to myself: “Whoa! Where did that come from?” There have also been times when I’ve gone to confession and the priest says something that seems to express exactly the…
The Gift of Understanding
posted 5/25/20 The last full-length novel that Mark Twain ever published was his book The Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc. And of all the great stories he ever wrote, he thought this one was his very best. Twain was not Catholic, he grew up in the South at a time when there was much anti-Catholicism there, and…
The Gift of Wisdom
posted 5/23/20 “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” (1 Cor 1:25) Two months before she died from tuberculosis, one of the nuns in her community said to the 24-year-old Sr. Therese of Lisieux, “you are a saint.” In response, Therese pointed to the tops of…
The Gifts of the Holy Spirit
posted 5/22/20 During this 9-day period between the Ascension and Pentecost, it is fitting to reflect on the significance of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. We first receive the Holy Spirit at our baptism, but at Confirmation we receive a full share in the Holy Spirit and a strengthening in the Spirit’s Gifts. I have vivid memories of my own Confirmation at the hands…
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 