What do we know… and not know about the Holy Family? What can we learn from the Feast of the Holy Family?
Month: December 2021
Christmas Conversations, Challenges, and Blessings
Christmas has many dimensions. Christmas gatherings spark conversations at many levels – past, present, and future.
Who Is Pope Francis Listening To?
Who have you listened to and been nourished by this Advent?
Secular writers or social influencers?
Scriptures, the Sunday gospels, or homilies?
Your conscience?
A spiritual director?
A combination of the above?
The Visitation as “Paying it forward”
In the annunciation of our Baptism, we are challenged to be Christ-bearers, to be Christ in the midst of our ordinary lives.
Mary’s visitation challenges us to “pay it forward”, to visit and encounter our neighbor.
Who Wants To Change Your Way of Thinking?
Everybody wants to change our way of thinking. Does God? What change of thinking is God asking about how we live?
From Christ’s Mass to Merry Christmas… and Back
iI we can enter into the fullness of Christmas past, we will experience new levels of hope in the midst of a chaotic Christmas present!
Have We Outgrown Nativity Scenes?
Many of us either witnessed or were participants as children in appropriate costumes and props re-enacted the Nativity scene.
As adults we grew beyond these re-enactments.
Something Pope Francis wrote reminds me to think about recognizing that we act out various roles in our daily life.
Giving Up Playing God?
Which approach is ours?
Giving up and walking away?
Giving up thinking we can do it on our own?
The Baptist I Never Knew
John the Baptist is the only saint in the calendar, apart from the mother of Jesus, to have two days set apart in his honor. He is featured in six Sunday Gospels in the three year Advent cycle.
Christmas and Baptism – From Outside or Inside?
“Baptism is like a very precious gift package that remains unopened, like a Christmas gift, misplaced somewhere and forgotten about, even before it was opened.” It is too big for my imagination.
Do You Speak In “Mother Tongue”?
Mary has appeared in almost every country in the world. In each, she speaks the language of the time and place. “They each heard them in their own language.” The languages were different, but the message was clear. In each language they heard the words of a mother.
What Does December 7th Mean to You?
I just missed by a few days witnessing the 1965 passing of the document – The Church in the Modern World. We are still within the normal window it takes to implement such a document. Pope Francis calls us to fully implement the document.
Questions I Would Like To Ask Mary
DId mary know she was conceived free from sin? What was she praying for before the Annunciation? What did she expect when she was expecting? What were her questions as the mother of Jesus?
Did Pope Francis plagiarize a Brother Bishop?
Beatitudes for Bishops seems spot-on for leaders in the Vincentian Family and all who see themselves as servants of the poor after the model of St. Vincent following Christ the Evangelizer of the poor.
What Should We As Church Be Doing?
“What is the most important thing that the church needs to be doing in the world today?”
Some say it needs to comfort those who are uncomfortable.
Others would say it needs to challenge the comfortable.
Which would you say?
Rom 16, 13 reads: "Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; and greet his mother—a mother to me also." If this…
Have a blessed Holy Week!
I have never thought about the people that were named in the Gospels. I would agree that they may be…
Generally, I love the laconic nature of Mark's Gospel. The Passion narrative is very compelling in its starkness, with one…
Father John, Blessings to you as you step cautiously down that new path. Grace and Peace be with you!