It was a kindly old priest in Coke bottle glasses, a matter-of-fact French Canadian servant of God with no desire to act as Grand Inquisitor. But his simple, basic questions did the job they were intended to do: They let us know that this was real, this was serious, and our responsibility was not going to go away.
Tag: The Catholic Weekly
Five pieces of advice for pastors (and a thank-you)
Last week, a priest responded to the article “Five Rules for a Royal Bride” with a humble request: “I wish Catholics in the pews would write us new pastors and new ordained priests advices like these! Y’all help us to be men of God, men for others, and men that have joy in their lives! Send me your five advices before I become pastor . . .”
Can do.
Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.
Image by photographer Matthew Lomanno, part of his visual essay North Country Priest. Used with permission.
Our personal apocalypse is the only one worth tracking
The only sins that matter for our personal salvation is the sins we personally commit. The only penitence we are responsible for is our own personal penitence. The only apocalypse that we should have our eye on is our own, personal apocalypse.
Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.
Image: Last Angel by Nicholas Roerich, [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Is it technically abuse? Does it really matter?
A child who is told he is stupid will always believe he is stupid. A child who is told she’s a failure will always believe she’s a failure. When these insults and hostility come from the very heart of the family, they take root.
Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.
Image by George Hodan (Creative Commons)
7 things Australians need to know about life in these United States
4. In the United States, the father of your father is called ‘grandfather’, and his father is called ‘great grandfather’, and his father is called ‘great-great grandfather’, but his father is always called ‘Aloysius’.
How do we help each other bear the cross?
We have no right to mutely point to the cross and let other people hang there alone. All humans must suffer, but all humans must also help each other bear that suffering.
Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly?
Image: Detail of Fifth Station of the Cross by Sieger Koder, “Folly of God” series
Red Hot Divine Marshmallow Mercy Squirters!
When we demand that every last little thing be calibrated to our aesthetic liking, we run the risk of worshipping aesthetics, rather than the Lord they’re meant to honor. So, yes, make adjustments when necessary. If a better translation is available, by all means use it! But don’t be such a precious butterfly that you simply can’t abide to alight on something that tickles you this way instead of that way. Keep on fluttering, and you’ll never get to the nectar.
What will the detective say over your cooling corpse?
Modern Catholics sometimes preen ourselves on our stealthy infiltration of the secular world, by which we are constantly evangelizing our unchurched friends, when if fact all we’re doing is sitting around drinking beer and making butt jokes, which religious and secular people do in perhaps slightly different ways, but there is a lot of overlap. In other words, maybe your stealth evangelization is so subtle, there isn’t actually any.
What is your weak link?
So many people had lost beloved medals or crucifixes because the one little link that attached them to the chain just wasn’t strong enough. What a shame! And how baffling that Catholic jewelry companies so often make this mistake. It doesn’t matter how beautiful the medal is, how well-made, how expensive, how meaningful. It will only be with you if that one little link is strong enough.
It’s hard to resist the metaphor here.
Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.
Image by Sean McGrath via Flickr (Creative Commons)
The Catechesis of Diabetes
![Last Angel by Nicholas Roerich, [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Last_Angel_1912.jpg){kind=link}
Catholics ought, by rights, to be prepared to have things turned on their heads. Christ Himself is the great breaker of categories, up-ender of comfortable rules, the disrupter of plans. Sooner or later, Christ will toss you in the air to be sifted, your wheat from your chaff, and it is terrifying.
Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.
Photo by Hans Splinter via Flickr (Creative Commons)