I chose St. Antony the Great to be my patron saint when I became Catholic. At least, I think I did. Maybe he chose me. Ever since I became Catholic, I have found odd connections I have had with him despite never becoming a monk. I had many reasons for why I picked him. Among them is that the works of St. Athanasius deeply influenced my decision to become Catholic, including his Life of St. Antony. Reading it, I found... Read more
Between finishing my undergraduate studies at Indiana University and starting my graduate studies at Xavier, I did clerical work at Indiana University in the Accounting and Information Systems Department at the Kelley School of Business. It was, in part, how I was able to earn money to visit Egypt, and in doing so, experience a Muslim country firsthand (I was also given money by my family for my birthday which also went to paying for the trip). I went through... Read more
I don’t understand it. Not only are many Christians indifferent to climate change, many others seem to believe it is an opportunity for them (or their country) to take on the world. Sometimes, the two, strangely go together. Such Christians seem to have become bloodthirsty, creating conflicts in the world. They are not interested in peace. They are interested in the using military might to take control the world, gaslighting everyone by saying they are interested in peace. Despite how... Read more
John the Baptist had fulfilled his primary role in the drama of salvation. He had prepared the way for Jesus. He had baptized Jesus. Was that the end for him? While he knew he must “decrease,” he also knew, so long as he lived, he would have more to do. No one’s work is done before they are dead. There is always something more to do or experience. John was a prophet and he had to continue to walk the... Read more
Time and time again, I see a rather ridiculous claim by those who claim to be a conservative and (or) a traditionalist within the Catholic Church; they say that Vatican II must be rejected, and it must be rejected because it is “Modernist.” By saying this, they show they are unwilling to listen to the church, and the Spirit who guides the church. They think they get to dictate to the church. To be sure, everyone should have a voice,... Read more
I did not have much contact or knowledge about Islam until I was in high school. I had, of course, seen movies which gave me bad (and false) impressions of Muslims thanks to the caricatures they presented (ones which, sadly, have been used to spread Islamophobia). In my junior year of high school, in my pre-calculus math class, there was an African American student who was also a Muslim. I think his name was David, but I am not sure.... Read more
When we talk about baptism, we can be talking about many different things. There is the pre-Christian ritual which culminated with John the Baptist, a ritual to which he gave a somewhat new meaning. He promoted its universalization, knowing it could be and would be taken up by Christ, giving it the grace which it needed. There is the sacrament of baptism, the ritual which is used to provide grace to those who are baptized while rendering them a member... Read more
Great events in history do not emerge from nowhere. They come out of the events which came before them, building upon them, expanding upon them, making something new out of them. Similarly, great people do not come out of nowhere. They come from all those who preceded them and all that happened before they lived. All history, all humanity, is interconnected. Great events come out of lesser events, building upon them, making those lesser events important even if we forget... Read more
Too many Christians get caught up with a pursuit for the supernatural, be it miraculous healings, apparitions, locutions, visions, dreams, or other forms of revelation; while there are some which are authentic, many are not, and pursuit of the miraculous will open someone up to deception, be it demonic or human. Too many people fake miracles. Too many fake apparitions and locutions. It is often difficult for the ordinary person to know which are valid and which are not. The... Read more
My first introduction to Judaism would be when I read the Tanakh, which at the time I understood only as the “Old Testament.” I interpreted it in the way Christians had generally been taught to do so: that is, it represented the ancient Jewish faith, a faith that served as God’s predecessor to Christianity, and so, a faith which had fulfilled its purpose at the time of Jesus’s birth. This gave me a very limited, and biased, reading of the... Read more
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