June 15, 2017
Truthfully, it is impossible to effectively PROVE that we—in 2017, as a society/as humans—are more intelligent than those who lived centuries (or millennia) ago, or vice versa. However, if we consider a few thoughts, anecdotes and some data, we might arrive at a reasonable
June 12, 2017
The Feast of the Holy Trinity follows Pentecost because it is only by the inspiration of the Third Person of the Trinity, who leads into all truth, that the mystery of the Trinity can be known. Human intelligence needs God’s help to apprehend the inner reality of God. Certainly, human reason can employ natural analysis to some extent to describe God in terms of causality and motion and goodness. Saint Anselm, who models the
June 5, 2017
The fire that Moses saw was not by any definition what we know as fire, for it did not burn the blazing bush. The light that shone from Christ in his Transfiguration was not what is light in the canons of natural physics, because it was of an intensity beyond accessible description without damaging the sight of Peter, James and John. Fifty days after the Resurrection, in the Upper Room, there was a noise “like” a driving wind and then flames “as of” fire shone over the heads of the apostles, but the description required similitudes because the noise and the flames were not a natural noise and
June 4, 2017
Less than two weeks after the Manchester suicide bombing and just three months after a terrorist ploughed into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before stabbing a policeman to death at Parliament, Saturday night, June 3, saw people scrambling amid two terrorist attacks – on the London Bridge and Borough Market. Video clips show
June 1, 2017
Bravo Coach Jasikevicius! EuroLeague pro basketball legend and current head coach for the pro basketball team Žalgiris Kaunas of the Lithuanian League, Coach Sarunas Jasikevicius flat stunned a reporter who repeatedly questioned why one of Jasikevicius’ star players didn’t play in the Semi Finals. Coach had let the player skip the game in order to be present at the birth of his first child. Standing at 6’4″, a former point guard, Coach Jasikevicius minced no words responding to the reporter, putting the
May 31, 2017
It is a wise policy, issuing from experience, and one hopes not from cynicism, to distrust email messages that begin by saying that the writer is “excited to share” something. Inevitably, this involves an overuse of exclamation points and much self-advertising. In religion, various movements keep pumping themselves up with
May 22, 2017
It was a great Lenten season. Aided by the suggestions in the book 40 Days, 40 Ways by Marcellino D’Ambrosio, Pat and I selected the ways we were going to participate daily and throughout Lent. What was unusual was that we had planned a trip to South America that had us away on Easter. We were in Trevelin, Argentina on
May 14, 2017
A few blocks north of our church, at 1664 Broadway in the old Warners’ Theatre which was demolished in 1952, the first Vitaphone talking film, The Jazz Singer, opened on October 6, 1927. I have been astonished that some of our bright young parishioners never heard of
May 4, 2017
Today, May 4, marks the 2017 National Day of Prayer. This year’s theme is For Your Great Name’s Sake! Hear Us…Forgive Us…Heal Us!, inspired by the Scripture verse Daniel 9:19. This year the National Day of Prayer Washington DC Observance moved to an evening event that will be held from 7:30 to 9 pm ET, and can be live streamed on the National Day of Prayer website (see links at bottom of article). An even bigger announcement, however, is that today
May 4, 2017
Just hours ago, the U.S. House of Representatives approved its version of repeal and replace what most refer to as “Obamacare.” Even political commentators at The Hill call the newly approved House bill “a good deal.” Eric Schleider of the Pro-Life
April 30, 2017
They say that Lyndon B. Johnson could arm-wrangle legislation through Congress like no one else. He would urge his aides to seize the moment in the wake of his historic 1964 victory, telling them that “Eighteen months from now, Ol’ Landslide Lyndon will be
April 30, 2017
Rare is the obituary that can match that of Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart (1880-1963) who died as the most decorated soldier in the British Army. He was born to a Belgian father and Irish mother, though reputed to be an illegitimate son of Leopold II, King of the Belgians. His mother died when he was six, and his English stepmother sent him to the Birmingham Oratory School in England, founded by Cardinal Newman. He entered the
April 27, 2017
You know that feeling when you discover something that seems too good to be true, and you have a hard time convincing someone of it? People listen to you and begin to wonder, what’s the catch? That’s how I feel about organizational health.
April 17, 2017
To write about the Resurrection of Christ is the hardest task, for the event is the deepest of all mysteries, and yet it is also the easiest to address because its power permeates every human action. This was planned by God from the start of creation, and the Risen Christ is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8).
In his last walk from Jericho up to
April 13, 2017
April 13, 2017
As we celebrate this Good Friday, we commemorate the singular event of our salvation, in the free offering of Jesus’ life on the Cross. As we venerate His Cross, let us also recall those in our midst who carry their own personal crosses each day.
April 9, 2017
The “Christ Brings Hope” Award is an award presented by Relevant Radio to an American Catholic who has worked with extraordinary dedication to bring the good news and hope of Christ to all souls. This person exemplifies the virtues of charity, generosity, hope, apostolic zeal, and love for the Truth.
April 2, 2017
When the original and lamented Pennsylvania Station designed by McKim, Mead & White was under construction in the first decade of the last century, our parish was not in a salutary area. The New York Tribune described it as a “whirlpool of slime, muck, wheels, hoofs, and destruction . . . a waterfront as squalid and dirty and ill smelling as that of any Oriental port . . .” The president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Alexander Cassatt (brother of the impressionist painter Mary
March 27, 2017
ISTANBUL — When 22 Christian refugees gathered in the basement of an apartment in Istanbul early on a recent Sunday afternoon, it was quickly clear that this was no ordinary prayer meeting. Several of them had Islamic names. There was an Abdelrahman and even a couple of Mohammads. Strangest of all, they jokingly referred to their host — one of the two Mohammads — as an irhabi.
March 26, 2017
Laetare Sunday is a relaxation from what, in our culture, are usually the not-too-rigorous rigors of this penitential season. Thoughts of the Heavenly Jerusalem occasioned the hymn “Jerusalem the Golden.” (Click here for choir, here for words) Ours is a translation by the Victorian classicist, John Mason Neale. The hymn is the fourth part of a poem by Bernard of Cluny in the twelfth century. He had dedicated it to the Abbot Peter the Venerable who oversaw the operation of nearly two thousand monasteries nurturing the revival of European civilization. In his attempt to better understand the twisted zeal of the Saracen Muslims who were massacring Christian pilgrims, Abbot Peter translated into