Deacon Eric Stoltz, who has created one of the most readable and compelling parish websites anywhere at Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills, is using that site as powerful teaching tool this week. He’s paired news images from Cairo with the Beatitudes that we heard in mass last Sunday. Below: “Blessed are they who mourn…” And the one below: “Blessed are the peacemakers…” Visit the site for more. It’s a challenging and thought-provoking effort to look at the... Read more
The ad references a familiar bible verse — and reports say that it was rejected by Fox for containing “religious doctrine.” Check it out below and see what you think. Read more
Ask and ye shall receive. Well, he asked for ’em. And he got ’em. Details here: Reverend Jim Baraniak typically doesn’t ask for help with his homilies. But then again, he typically doesn’t deliver them to a team hours away from playing in the Super Bowl. “There is a lot on the line, therefore I put it out on my blog online, these are the readings, if you were in my shoes, what would you be preaching? What do you... Read more
Here’s a surprising, and surprisingly touching, video from the March for Life, about a vocation that grew from an unlikely place. Further proof: you never know how God will work. Read more
Talk about an upstanding citizen. Somebody cue “The Four Seasons” to sing “Walk Like A Man”… And get a load of this great ape’s great gait. You can read more about this guy here. Read more
That’s how Taylor Marshall describes it, discussing that topic over on his blog. A snip: The Catholic Church has traditionally seen deacons as necessarily chaste and continent because they touch the sacred chalice. I would like to argue that the sacred chalice is itself “the mystery of faith” and this has become forgotten in modern liturgics. One difficulty in the post-Vatican 2 liturgy, now recognized by many liturgists, was the divorce of the “mysterium fidei” from the words of consecration... Read more
“Well! I see another year has gone by and the pastor’s wife still isn’t pregnant. A fine example they’re setting! I won’t have them teaching my children CCD, since his own wife is clearly on the Pill.” — Simcha Fisher, with some other droll observations, too. Read more
It’s another deacon blogger. Welcome! He’s Protodeacon David Kennedy, whose online biography notes: I serve in the parish of St. Elias, Brampton, Ontario [Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Toronto]. I was ordained deacon in 1978 and raised to the protodiaconate in 1982. I studied at the University of Toronto, BA [philosophy and religious studies] 1975; the University of St. Michael’s College (Toronto), MDiv 1978; ThM 1982; U of T (Faculty of Education) BEd 1985. I teach secondary school [religious studies and... Read more
“When we begin again to say ‘And with your Spirit’ instead of the banal ‘And also with you’, we should understand that we are not referring to the soul of the priest as distinct from his bodily existence. We are making reference to the awe-inspiring mystery of our common redemption and healing through the Holy Spirit whom the resurrected Jesus has sent into our hearts. In particular we are referring to the special grace gift of the Spirit by which... Read more
I first heard this joke a few years ago … and I’m frankly surprised that someone thought it would make a good commercial. Well, truth be told, it doesn’t. What seemed naughty and irreverent as a joke comes off here as just tacky. And what this has to do with Red Bull remains a mystery to me. But see what you think. Read more
The Deacon's Bench
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