Be glad you don’t live next door to this guy in Riverside, CA. He does this every year (check out last year’s spectacular, set to “Thriller.”). Me, I consider Halloween a success if I remember to buy enough candy corn. But something like this? I’m awestruck. Read more
Today was was “Choir Sunday” at my parish, where every person at every liturgy got a chance to hear our glorious choir (which normally sings at only the 11:30 “high” Mass.) The hymn below — a favorite of mine — was the fitting processional. I found a very good rendition that I’ve embedded below. So go ahead: make a joyful noise! When in our music God is glorified, and adoration leaves no room for pride, it is as though the... Read more
An amazing story of courage and young love. Details: The young Catholic man spirited his Jewish girlfriend out of Auschwitz in 1944, saving her life. Yet it took 39 years for them to see each other again. Jerzy Bielecki, a German-speaking Polish inmate at the same Nazi death camp, lived to age 90 and died peacefully in his sleep Thursday at his home in Nowy Targ in southern Poland, his daughter, Alicja Januchowski said Saturday. Januchowski, a New Yorker, spoke... Read more
From a friend’s FB page: Related: Student with Down Syndrome Crowned Homecoming King Read more
I touched on this earlier this month, when I mentioned in a homily the circumstances surrounding Steve Jobs’ birth to an unwed college student. But there’s more to the story: Among the revelations in former CNN chairman Walter Isaacson‘s new biography of Steve Jobs, was that Jobs met his biological father Abdulfattah “John” Jandali many years ago. But at the time, Jobs didn’t know Jandali was his father. And the father had no idea Jobs was his son. Isaacson tells... Read more
As we mark Blessed John Paul’s first feast day, some of us may have forgotten what a shock it was when the news was announced that the new pope would be a cardinal from Poland. No one even knew how to pronounce his name. And the crowd in St. Peter’s Square was genuinely stunned. Hear their reaction below, in this little time capsule from ABC News. A generation later, it still gives goosebumps. Read more
[Note: my parish is celebrating a special “high” mass Saturday to mark the first Feast of Blessed John Paul II.] [Click here for the readings] By a happy coincidence, this gospel touches on a theme that was so vital to Pope John Paul. In the parable, a tree is given one more chance to bring forth good fruit. The gardener gives it that chance; he offers it the gift of mercy. John Paul, you’ll remember, was beatified on the Feast... Read more
The jazz great was born on 10 October 1917, and these notes of his to saxophonist Steve Lacy have been working their way around the Interpipes since then. My favorite: “A note can be as small as a pin or as big as the world. It depends on your imagination.” Dig it: And for a chaser, here’s a little Monk with “Round Midnight”: Read more
With Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi now out of the picture, Christian leaders are looking back at his life and brutal legacy. From CNS: Catholic leaders said they could not rejoice at the death of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, but they recalled some of his more brutal moments and speculated on the future of Christians in the region. “Gadhafi brutalized people for 42 years. He lived by the sword and, therefore, it’s not surprising that he would die by the sword,” said... Read more
Or someone thinks so. Fr. James Martin bids goodbye to a few of his favorite things. Meantime, take it away, Skeeter. Read more
The Deacon's Bench
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