Author: Father Thomas Kocik

Holy Week: Get Your Full Ticket’s Worth
Imagine you’re in a movie theater watching the latest blockbuster, thoroughly captivated by the plots and subplots, the beautiful faces and lush scenery as the movie progresses inexorably toward its climax. Your cell phone alerts you to an incoming call. …

A Gorgeous Splash of Oriental Color: Epiphany Reflections
The Feast of the Lord’s Epiphany is traditionally observed on the twelfth day of Christmas, January 6th.1 In the universal law of the Latin Church, Epiphany is a holy day of obligation (can. 1246); the same law gives to conferences …

No Other Gods: Three Questions That Can Help You Sift Pagan Chaff from Christian Grain
Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem “From shadows and images into truth”1 Various translations are possible, since imagines can be translated: ideas, appearances, phantasms, likenesses, simulacra, symbols, etc. For Newman, the darkness from which he had emerged could be described, …
“Culmen et Fons” liturgical conference, Sept. 18-22, Peabody, MA
To register or view the conference schedule, click HERE. If you would like to become a sponsor or underwrite the cost of priests or religious to attend, please email [email protected] Father Thomas KocikBorn and raised in Binghamton, New York, Fr. …

When Silence Speaks Volumes: A St. Joseph’s Day Reflection
When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home. — Matthew 1:24 In the Gospel passage for today’s Mass (March 19th),1 The Ordinary Form provides two options: Mt …

An Urgently Needed Unforgetting
While teaching a theology class to men in formation for the diaconate, I asked, “When was the last time you heard a homily on Hell?” None of the sixteen could recall. “And Heaven?” Only two. The exchange reminded me of …

Traffic Worth Getting Caught In: The Liturgy as the Place of our Personal Salvation
As a young boy, “It was a riveting adventure to move by degrees into the mysterious world of the liturgy which was being enacted before us and for us there on the altar. It was becoming more and more clear …

From Promise to Fulfillment (Or, Good News for Jews)
In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days He has spoken to us by a Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He …

Trinity Sunday: A Reflection
This Sunday in the Latin Church is the feast of the Most Holy Trinity (the first Sunday after Pentecost in both the ordinary and extraordinary forms of the Roman Rite). With this post, I share some thoughts (assembled from homilies …

Suggestions for the 2015 Synod on the Family
The following editorial by Father Peter Stravinskas, Ph.D., S.T.D., appears in the current (May/June) issue of The Catholic Response magazine. It is posted here with Father’s permission. When the Extraordinary Synod on the Family was announced and when it concluded, I …