Photo: Karen Callaway Here’s an aspect of parish life that doesn’t get much attention. From U.S. Catholic: Like many other lifelong Catholics, Danny Benavidez, a member of St. Rose of Lima Parish in Chula Vista, California, helps out at his parish in a number of ways. On Thursdays he serves as a eucharistic minister. Every other Sunday he delivers communion to the homebound. Once a month he listens to the “talking, talking, talking” at his Knights of Columbus meeting. And... Read more
Just in time for CyberMonday… The InterWebs are abuzz with the big story on “60 Minutes” Sunday night, wherein Charlie Rose gave the world the first peek at Amazon’s experimental delivery system involving drones. I’m one of several people—there must be thousands out there—who saw this item on my Facebook feed and thought, “Yeah, right. Is this The Onion?” But no. This is real. From the transcript: But during our visit to Amazon’s campus in Seattle, Bezos kept telling us... Read more
After too many months, my good friend Triple D—the legendary Deacon Doctor Ditewig (Bill, to most of us)— has revived his dormant blog, “Deacons Today,” with a fresh look. He notes: Once again I apologize for not blogging as frequently as I would like. On the other hand, the reasons are wonderful ones: my ministries on behalf of the diocese, the teaching I am doing, especially graduate students in pastoral ministry, and the ministries of our parish are all life-giving... Read more
And for children, no less. I can only imagine the nightmares this induced. From Pat McNamara comes this piece from the time capsule: an Advent sermon from 1900. Snip: The day will surely come when there will be an end to all the wickedness that exists in the world, and no more insults will be offered to God. On this day, almighty God will appear in all His glory and terrible majesty as the just Judge of the living and... Read more
Now for something different, from blogger and author Steve Ray: It was unsettling. You don’t expect to sit at Mass and discover the person next to you is a man dressed as a woman – actually, a man who “is” a woman. It was a bit discombobulating. You don’t expect such an spectacle at Mass any more than you expect an elephant to walk up the isle. Janet and I are still a bit jet-lagged so we went to a... Read more
A deacon in Ohio sent this my way: a moving tribute to life well-lived, marking the passing of a wife, school teacher and mother who, among other things, was the wife of a deacon. From the Toledo Blade: Lois Quinn, a former Catholic school teacher in East and South Toledo, died Thursday in Hospice of Northwest Ohio in Toledo after a years-long struggle with cancer. She was 80. She taught second grade for eight years at St. Thomas Aquinas in... Read more
Photo by Therese Frare/LIFE For World AIDS Day, from LIFE magazine: In November 1990 LIFE magazine published a photograph of a young man named David Kirby — his body wasted by AIDS, his gaze locked on something beyond this world — surrounded by anguished family members as he took his last breaths. The haunting image of Kirby on his death bed, taken by a journalism student named Therese Frare, quickly became the one photograph most powerfully identified with the HIV/AIDS epidemic... Read more
Nobody captures the essence of Advent better than The Anchoress, God love her: Welcome! Welcome! I shed tears of gratitude and joy that you have come round again, O Advent, to shake us from our torpor as early night comes, and the match is struck, and the message is brought home once more; that we are forever in the absence of light; it is beyond us and exterior until we make it welcome and bring it, like a lover, within. Welcome... Read more
These guys are apparently quite the sensation on the interwebs, but they’re new to me: The Piano Guys, four faithful Mormons who make amazing piano music. Their latest: this lovely rendition of “Angels We Have Heard on High,” performed as you’ve never heard (or seen) before, with one piano making some amazing sounds. Just watch. Read more
Here’s one from the vault: my homily for this Sunday from 2010. +++ Anyone looking for interesting holiday recipes may have stumbled on a new word that has entered the American lexicon: “Cherpumple.” It’s a desert, created by Los Angeles writer Charles Phoenix – a diet-destroying, gut-busting feat of cooking that seems guaranteed to induce sugar shock. It’s three different pies, stacked one on top of the other, and baked into one gargantuan “monster pie” with three layers – cherry,... Read more
The Deacon's Bench
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