Holy Communion, after the Incarnation, is the greatest gift that Jesus bestowed upon the faithful and His Mystical Body, the Church. If unity with the Beloved is the fullness and perfection of divine love, then humbly receiving Our Lord in Communion with piety and reverence is the ordinary way to the “ineffable union (that) He…
A story of scandal is always a draw for us fallen human creatures. The stench of sin brings a flavor unparalleled to the woeful stories of the broken world, both on national and on personal level. But we humans are drawn more to stories of survival. To stories of beating the odds. To stories that…
Charles Peguy (1873-1914): “It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been committed for fear of not looking sufficiently progressive.” Elsewhere, I recently published a piece pleading for the universal reinstatement of the Traditional Latin Mass. This plea flies in the face of fears that the usus antiquior will be restricted, or…
Do you worry about today or what the future holds? Opening the newspaper or reading the latest tweet certainly provides enough kindling for worry to become a roaring fire. If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. Recently, I’ve been thinking about fears Americans and other nationalities confronted in the past. Pondering history is not…
“In the seminary we were taught that our homilies should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” Recently out of work, I sat in the pew, worried about how I was going to provide for my family. An unknown virus was making its way throughout the country, and with a fervor absent in the defense…
On May 13, Steve Skojec issued a call for submissions detailing a “positive development” showing how “grace is at work in building up the Mystical Body of Christ” in the midst of (among other “demoralizing” events) the COVID epidemic. Here is how one man – namely me – has in the past year been taken…
“But my people would not listen to me . . . . So I let them go their stubborn ways and do whatever they wished” (Psalm 81:11-12; cf. Romans 1:24-25). One version of a famous fable is this: A scorpion asked a frog for transportation across a river. The frog, thinking that the scorpion…
There is one business that is thriving in this pandemic: The dog-breeding business. Of all things! This I did not know. I discovered this one day as I was walking along the pier at our lake-side city. A popular spot with dog-walkers. Of which we have a great many in our town. As I struck…
Browse the Catholic realm of the internet on a fine afternoon following work, and what shall you see? Another day, another puerile fight. Such is, with increasing frequency, the life of internet “evangelization”. On a recent day I observed a respected professor announce an upcoming book, featuring various Catholic writers, which would examine the infallibility…
It was a Saturday afternoon in summer. It was bright and sunny. It was a “Saturday vigil” Mass for some green Sunday or other. I was twelve. The celebrant was the diocesan bishop, Theodore McCarrick. He was doing a parish visit. My memories of that Saturday at church were vivid even before “Uncle Ted” became…
The phrase, “The Family That Prays Together, Stays Together” was coined by Venerable Father Patrick Peyton.* And it seems to have been received as a relatively uncontroversial assertion. But I want to ask why this works. Why does the family that prays together stay together? It’s not a magic spell we cast with our formulas.…
