Did you know they've used the Stanley Cup as a baptismal font?

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 5:37 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

I didn’t, until blogger (and deacon’s wife!) Kathy Schiffer wrote about it a few days back: Seven-week-old Alva Felicia Sundstrom, niece of Detroit Red Wings’ right winger Tomas Holmstrom, was baptized in “Lord Stanley” on July 25, 2008, in a private ceremony outside Holmstrom’s hometown of Pitea, in northern Sweden. Robert Sundstrom, who is Holmstrom’s cousin and Alva’s father, said that the two men had been sitting together in the kitchen of Holmstrom’s summer cabin when the idea came up.... Read more

For Labor Day: Want to succeed? Get happy!

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 5:37 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

Want to know the secret of greater productivity at work? Some researchers are happy to tell you: Over the past decade, we researched the micro-level causes behind this macro-level problem. To gain real-time perspective into everyday work lives, we collected nearly 12,000 electronic diary entries from 238 professionals in seven different companies. Our study charted each person’s psychological state each day, and asked respondents to describe one event that stood out during that day. Our analysis revealed their inner work... Read more

What happens when a chimp sees sunlight for the first time?

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 5:37 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

You gotta see this. HuffPo notes: RTL, a German television station, provided this tearjerking footage of lab chimps taking their first steps of freedom outdoors and into the sun. It’s in German, but we can gather that this was the first time the animals had ever been let loose in natural daylight. Feel-good footage aside, the use of chimps in research has long been a hot-button issue. A few months ago, 180 chimpanzees at a federal primate facility in New... Read more

For Labor Day: "We see in work a sign of God's love…"

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 5:37 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

“We have reminded Christians of the wonderful words of Genesis which tell us that God created man so that he might work, and we have concentrated on the example of Christ, who spent most of His life on earth working as a craftsman in a village. We love human work which He chose as His state in life, which He cultivated and sanctified. We see in work, in men’s noble creative toil, not only one of the highest human values,... Read more

What are we? This video answers that question. Brilliantly.

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 5:37 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

I just love this. Watch it and share it. UPDATE: For those who have asked, this link has the lyrics. The song is “All We Are” by Sugarland. A snip: Fire like lightnin’ Burning up the night Smoke horizon Won’t give up the fight Where deep inside, you can hear that call Wakin’ your heart, and shakin’ your walls Where love is found and nations fall A cry will rise above it all All we are (we are) All we... Read more

That OTHER Deacon Greg

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 5:19 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

Okay. Besides being a deacon, St. Gregory the Great was also a pope and a saint. In his spare time, he wrote the first biography of St. Benedict and, when he had nothing better to do, composed the chant that bears his name. Overachiever? Just a bit. Happy feast day, though, to all the Gregorys out there — those who are great and those (like me) who are barely adequate. Below, is the prayer for this day from the... Read more

Australia moves to eliminate B.C. and A.D. from textbooks

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 5:37 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

Christians Down Under are outraged over changes in the national school curriculum that would remove the use of Before Christ (B.C.) and Anno Domini (A.D.) in school textbooks in favor of terms that are more politically correct. Details, from the Christian Post: London-based Daily Telegraph reports that the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) wants to replace B.C. and A.D. (Anno Domini is Latin for “the year of our Lord”) with less religious terms like BCE (Before Common Era),... Read more

Leaps of faith: Christians and Jews reaching out to Muslims after 9/11

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 5:37 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

It’s a phenomenon that cropped up shortly after the terror attacks, and the New York Times looks at how it has played out in some communities: When Betsy Wiggins opened her front door and saw the woman in a full black face veil coming up her flower-lined walkway, she wondered if she had done the right thing. It was 11 days after 9/11, and Mrs. Wiggins, a speech pathologist and the wife of a Methodist minister in Syracuse, had called... Read more

Ladies and gentlemen: the "Church Whisperer"

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 5:37 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

From the Baltimore Sun, a profile of longtime FOB (Friend of the Bench) Rocco Palmo, the shockingly young upstart behind “Whispers in the Loggia”: A 28-year-old guy living in his parents’ basement in South Philadelphia just might be one of the foremost experts on the American Catholic Church. Rocco Palmo facetiously calls himself “The Church Whisperer,” and over the past six years, his blog has become a must-read for ecclesiastical insiders. After starting with just three readers a few days... Read more

Homily for September 4, 2011: 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Last updated on: September 3, 2011 at 10:18 am By Deacon Greg Kandra

[Click here for the readings] Not long ago, I read a short essay by a Protestant minister named Lillian Daniel. She described an experience that a lot of us in the clergy have had at one time or another: being on an airplane, striking up a conversation with a stranger, and then hearing that person explain, for the rest of the flight, how they are “spiritual, but not religious.” In this theology, it’s all about finding God on the beach,... Read more