Cry 'Woof'
The Prefecture (more fully the Apostolic Prefecture of St. Mary’s World) is the name given to the Catholic Church as an institution on St. Mary’s-without-the-Arm, also known as S’Mary’s World. Prior to the departure of the freezer ship Read more
The Prefecture (more fully the Apostolic Prefecture of St. Mary’s World) is the name given to the Catholic Church as an institution on St. Mary’s-without-the-Arm, also known as S’Mary’s World. Prior to the departure of the freezer ship Read more
Sometimes you go back to a book you remember with delight, and you wonder what you ever saw in it. Other times, you go back to a book you remember with a mild fondness…and discover that it’s wholly delightful. That’s been my experience recently as I revisit Dorothy Sayers’ tales of Lord Peter Wimsey; and the first of these is Whose Body?, which is in the public domain and can be found in any manner of places. Whose Body? was... Read more
There are two ways to look at the Church, two ways that are essential for a balanced Christian life; and I notice that many Catholics I read on-line seem to give more emphasis to one or the other. The first is what I’ll call the Eternal View. People who emphasize this view (people like me) focus on the unchanging things of the Faith: the Divine, the truths of theology, the words of scripture. We study these things, and we think... Read more
I actually picked up the Rosary before I returned to the Catholic Church. A non-Catholic high school friend had gone on a trip to Rome, and since I was still Catholic then had brought me back a rosary from the Vatican. (He also brought back a photo of a statue of a pope that he and his sister thought looked like me. I have no idea who it was, really.) I didn’t pray the Rosary at that time; but in... Read more
This post first appeared in October of 2003. One of my favorite movies of all time is Support Your Local Sheriff, a western spoof starring James Garner, Bruce Dern, Harry Morgan, Walter Brennan, and a whole host of other faces you’d recognize immediately. We got the DVD some while back, and every so often when I’m tired and I just want to sit down and veg I’ll pull it out and be happy for an hour or so. Garner drifts... Read more
If we take joy in the Gospel, if it truly is Good News, we’ll want to share it. More than that, Jesus gave us a positive and specific command just before his ascension: “Go and make disciples of all the nations.” In paragraph 20 of Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis says this: In our day Jesus’ command to “go and make disciples” echoes in the changing scenarios and ever new challenges to the Church’s mission of evangelization, and all of us... Read more
“And nobody cheered, they just stood and stared, and they turned their faces away.” In 1915, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, the “Anzacs”, were sent to Gallipoli in Turkey to fight the Turks. It was one of the bloodiest campaigns of the war, and that’s going some. Eric Bogle wrote a song about it from the point of view of one of the men whose body was shattered by the experience; and the Pogues recorded. Here’s Shane McGowan... Read more
Pain and suffering are difficult by definition. Recently Calah Alexander took issue with people who tell her, “God will never give you anything you can’t handle,” because people are often overwhelmed by situations they simply do not have the resources to cope with. Telling such a person that “God will never give you anything you can’t handle” can seem like a cruel joke: if only you were more in tune with God, it seems to say, you’d be coping with... Read more
She pronounced a word which she should have kept to herself, since there was a lady present. — Rex Stout, Death of a Doxy Read more
I’m doing a series on Dominican spirituality over at CatholicMom; the first post is on Prayer, which is the first pillar of Dominican life. Read more
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