Wednesday night, CNN analyst and ex-FBI agent Philip Mudd could not contain his emotions as he talked about the horrific school shooting in Florida. Watch his extraordinary exchange with Wolf Blitzer above. Pray for those students, their families, and our country.   Read more

It’s been a busy day. As I write, it’s about 2 p.m. Two Masses and one school service down; another Mass and Liturgy of the Word to go. I’m glad I didn’t give up coffee for Lent. I was up early to be at the parish around 7:45, to get set for the first Mass, at 8:00 a.m. I preached at that, at the 10 a.m. school liturgy, and at the noon Mass. The schedule, posted on the door of... Read more

I’ll be giving out ashes at four Masses and one Liturgy of the Word tomorrow, so my thumb will be getting a workout. We typically get about 4,000 people at the parish on Ash Wednesday. That doesn’t include the religious ed kids, walk-ins, visits to the local firehouse…it gets busy. So here’s my clergy pro-tip for the day: use this stuff. [img attachment=”279394″ align=”aligncenter” size=”full” /] We’ve been using these — or variations of them — at the parish for... Read more

Details from CNS: Three young Muslim men who were found guilty of desecrating a statue of Mary were ordered by a Lebanese judge to memorize passages from the Quran that praise the mother of Jesus. The defendants, who live in a mostly Christian village, were apprehended after circulating online a video of themselves desecrating the statue, news media reported. At their sentencing Feb. 8, Judge Jocelyne Matta ordered the young men to memorize verses from the Al Imran chapter of... Read more

Oops:  PyeongChang is a mountainous county 110 miles southeast of Seoul in South Korea, and the host of the 2018 Winter Olympics. P.F. Chang’s is an Asian-inspired chain restaurant with 210 U.S. locations, including ones in Chicago, Lombard, Northbrook, Orland Park and Schaumburg. PyeongChang and P.F. Chang’s are not the same thing, and beyond the fact that they both begin with the letter P and end in “Chang,” they have little in common. This distinction, however, appears to have eluded... Read more

In 1971, an art student at Portland State University named Carolyn Davidson got a job doing some freelance design work for a local sporting goods company. They were looking for a company logo, an emblem. Carolyn Davidson came up with something in just a few hours. Everyone liked what she did and thanked her. For a day’s work, she was paid $35. Little did anyone realize what Carolyn Davidson had created. That design went on to generate billions—and made history.... Read more

From The Chicago Tribune:  Waukegan’s Cristo Rey St. Martin College Prep, a work-study opportunity for hundreds of students over the last 14 years, is slated to open a state-of-the-art campus Tuesday, repurposing an old Kmart store. The new high school at 3106 Belvidere Road is the result of an $18.5 million adaptive reuse project led by JGMA architects and the McShane Construction Company that wows visitors with a bright palette of blues and greens both inside and outside the structure.... Read more

I first posted this way back in 2010, and it still holds up well (dates aside).  This comes from the good people at Aggie Catholic. Everything you always wanted to know about Lent, but were afraid to ask. For starters: What is Lent? Lent is a time when the Catholic Church collectively enters into preparation for the celebration of Easter. Lent originally developed as a forty-day retreat, preparing converts to be baptized at the Easter Vigil. Lent is a season of conversion. Conversion is the... Read more

I’m not scheduled to preach this weekend, but here’s something from the vault that may be timely. We talk a lot in this church about vocations.  Here in the parish, we have the novena to St. Jean Vianney every summer. We pray regularly for an increase in vocations.  We encourage parents to talk to their children about considering life as a priest or brother or a sister. But this Sunday, I’m going to talk about a vocation that doesn’t get as much... Read more