ADVENT WAITING…
I never really knew what waiting meant until my baby was two weeks overdue. I baked. I read. I walked. I stocked up on diapers and sleepers. Also, my kitchen has never been cleaner. I was attuned to every little…
Novalis Seeds of Faith
OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE
Miss America! ¡Qué guapa! I love what you’ve done with beauty. You took its pure, lily-white supremacist notion and introduced it to some salutary sunshine. Your body is as shapely as three contiguous continents. Your hair is charcoal cornsilk. From…
POPE FRANCIS ANNOUNCES THE YEAR OF ST. JOSEPH
I’m rather partial to St. Joseph, considering that I bear his name and was baptized on his feast day of March 19. And so I felt a special thrill when Pope Francis announced Dec. 8 that we would be celebrating…
ADVENT BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS
Advent is a time of preparation and there is no shortage of advice on how to be ready for Christmas. But with these suggestions for Advent reading, I want to take you down a slightly unusual path for the season.…
ADVENT 2020
waiting. waiting. while heaven downloads onto devices a million years old. this could take all month… thank God it’s Advent: season of Hope nested inside Pandemic: season of Brick Walls (objects that stop and block but also prop up helpful…
Q&A WITH AUTHORS OF AT YOUR SIDE: PRAYERS FOR MESSY, DELIGHTFUL, COMPLICATED, OUTRAGEOUS, EVERYDAY LIFE
What is this book about? Raymond Friel: It’s about being a human being, I suppose, a creature, trying to understand the Creator, trying to speak to the source of our life in ways that make sense to me and hopefully…
CHRIST THE KING
I don’t often express a disagreement with those who prepare liturgical texts, but on this feast I do. Saying that Christ is the King of the Universe, at least to me, makes it sound like Star Wars – that title…
MUSINGS ON THE THEME OF THIS WORLD DAY OF THE POOR: “STRETCH OUT YOUR HAND TO THE POOR”
I remember long ago an anecdotal story of the conference of bishops of Brazil who ended their meetings about policies and procedures with the question: “Well gentlemen, how have we helped the poor today?” Whether this account is true or…
BOOK REVIEW: JUST WATER: THEOLOGY, ETHICS, AND FRESH WATER CRISES
Consider fresh water. We use it for cooking, cleaning, bathing, agriculture and for just about all our economic activities. Yet, of all the water on Earth, only 2.5% of that is fresh water; and most of that lies in icecaps…
REMEMBRANCE DAY
My parents were children during the Second World War, and their memories of that time were lasting ones. They recalled doing paper and scrap drives with their pals, wearing underwear that had buttons instead of elastic, and the incredible gift…