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 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 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
March 21, 2017
If there are any doubts about whether everything in life–even your work–is integrated, Dwight Clark is one of the finest examples of the truth: YES! As he was on the football field—fearless, focused, pioneering, always giving his best game—so he is in his personal life, even in the midst of his most challenging obstacle yet: ALS.
March 21, 2017
In an age of moral confusion, there are those who would suggest that the word “not” has been interpolated in several of the Commandments. It is easy to make words mean what one wants them to mean: in fiction, Humpty Dumpty did that in Wonderland and, in fact, the Anti-Christ did that in the Wilderness. Satan is clever at quoting words out of context to make them mean what they do not mean. After forty days, Christ mocked that deceit. “You
March 13, 2017
Since no one was with our Lord during the forty days he spent in the wilder
March 5, 2017
A “psychic reader” near our church has a sign telling what bell to ring for her to open the door. If I ever have the chance, I shall ask why, if she has psychic abilities, does she need a doorbell? Superstition is a sin against holy religion, and one can look for meaning in numbers to the point of excess, which is one form of superstition. But God’s historical involvement with us seems intertwined with certain numerical configurations that can be hard to ignore. Foremost among them, of course, is the number seven, but there is also
March 3, 2017
While we Catholics and Christians—and all men and women throughout the world who embrace common sense, respect for human dignity and the immortality of the human soul—gasp in horror at newly released scientific experimentation, others trample on even the most basic of natural human ethical principles, those concerning human life itself. Here’s why. According to reports in the
February 27, 2017
There is nothing new in being told that we are dust and shall return to dust. We hear it every year. Ezekiel pondered that when he saw a valley of dry bones. The answer came when God breathed, and the bones came alive again, “an exceedingly great army” (Ezekiel 37:10).
February 20, 2017
An oral tradition holds that in the course of a reception during the Constitutional Convention, the hearty Gouverneur Morris on a wager, after bowing to George Washington, patted him on the shoulder. Washington cast an icy glare at Morris, and the room fell silent. A man of grace and tact, Washington nonetheless had no patience for what he considered boorishness.