Have you heard the one about the funny saint? Talk about saints often focuses first on serious attributes: piety, for example, or a sense of selflessness. While an extraordinarily pious man, Saint Philip Neri, a 16th-century Italian priest and founder…
Although only mentioned briefly in the Acts of the Apostles, the election of Matthias as an apostle illustrates for us the importance of discernment in the life of the Church. We are told that shortly after Jesus’ Ascension, on the…
We think of Easter as a perennial event, as sure as the return of spring, the blooming of the daffodils. It is reassuring and comforting. Yet should it be? Should it be rather a shock, a jolt to our comfortable…
We received in our office the early shipment of Pope Francis’ newest book The Church of Mercy. We couldn’t help but share with you a passage that we thought was fitting for our commemoration of Jesus’ death on the cross today. Pope…
It is a day that takes us from soaring joy to the depths of sorrow. Palm Sunday begins with chants of Hosanna as Jesus arrives in Jerusalem amid a triumphant crowd. Two thousand years on, we join with that throng…
Today, Feb. 22, is no mere Saturday in Ordinary Time. It was no doubt chosen by Pope Francis as the date for his first consistory to install new members into the College of Cardinals because it is the Feast of…
The work of Carvaggio, the master Renaissance artist, proves a picture really is worth a thousand words. His powerful painting, Conversion on the Way to Damascus, has forever cemented in popular culture that notion that St. Paul was riding a…
On the feast of St. Agnes there is an interesting blessing celebrated at the church of the saint on Piazza Navona in Rome. Two lambs are blessed, and when they have grown, the wool from these lambs is woven and…
Comet Hale-Bopp hung brightly in the clear night sky – seemingly in suspended animation! I had just come out of church at the conclusion of the 8:00 p.m. Mass. I’d been waiting seemingly endlessly to finally see for myself this…
The Christmas season is all about joy. This is not what we might think: true joy is not synonymous with laughter or merry-making, though these might be expressions of it. True joy is something much deeper — and much rarer.…