UPDATED: Ted Seeber saves Lent by reminding me that no Lent-o-Rama is complete without This Time of Forty Days. I love you, so I post it here: Now resuming our previously written post . . . A friend posted this useful infographic on Lenten basics, but observed that the current norms seem like an awfully light penance. They are. At this time, the Church has, in her wisdom, chosen to throw out a little test: Are you in or aren’t you?... Read more
We watched most of the Superbowl (go cats!), the Downton hour excepted, and we thought the Doritos commercial was sorta funny. NARAL was mortified at the way the commercial “humanized” the baby on the ultrasound, and the counter-reaction seems to be missing something important in that protest: the Doritos. Let’s take NARAL at their word, for a moment, and examine what it was about this ultrasound that was different from every other: The baby expressed clear personal preferences and acted on... Read more
We Catholics like our programs. Love our programs. So here’s this program we have starting this month, and the whole Church is enrolled. It’s called “Lent” and it features prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. That’s the theory, anyhow. During Lent your parish is likely to take on some kind of other program as a sort of evangelization-thingie. Small groups (I approve), or a parish mission (ditto), or some other worthy pursuit. These things are good. But what if your parish isn’t... Read more
As I mentioned the other week, Sr. Simone Campbell has shown herself to be a dreadful sexist (and a bit of an atheist) in her reflection on the Gospel accounts of the feeding of the 5,000 men. The question she posed, however, is a good one. What she wanted to know is: Why do the Scriptures give a counting of the men present so specifically? We can’t even say the authors were using the term “men” in a generic way... Read more
Jimmy Akin has a good review of this past Sunday’s Gospel reading up at the Register. Meanwhile, something to think about: When Philip asks, “Can anything good from Nazareth?” the intensity of the question is lost on us. When we hear other references to Jesus being from that town, there’s no real significance. It’s just this place. A little town like any other. We tend, then, to dismiss the rejection of Jesus in his hometown as just one of those... Read more
This past week a priest in our region died, suddenly and unexpectedly. He was not someone I knew personally, accident of geography. Friday morning as I opened class in prayer, I completely forgot to include Father in our prayers until one of the moms reminded me. In the excitement of a morning teaching, that sorrow again slipped from my mind. On the way into Benediction before Mass, I saw an acquaintance in the narthex, the father of one of my... Read more
Yesterday was my sister’s birthday, and since I’d lost her phone number (again!) I dropped her a note online to wish her many happy returns of the day. We chatted a bit, and then she asked that I unleash you prayer warriors on behalf of Casey Colvin, a young father who went in to the hospital for routine shoulder surgery and failed to come out due to cardiac arrest. So in your charity, please remember Casey and his family in... Read more
I am so stinking proud of Elizabeth Scalia for launching Aleteia’s new magazine For Her. I worked for Elizabeth during her tenure here at Patheos and she was a superlative editor — smart, insightful, hardworking, compassionate, and loads of fun. But wow, I had no idea she was about to go do something this fabulously amazingly awesomely cool. It’s a dream-come-true quality magazine launch: Finally we’ve got a real women’s magazine with the fashion spreads and the beautiful stuff, only... Read more
It’s the day of prayer and penance for the unborn, and not only am I not marching, I’m not even out teaching — home with a cold and watching a child with a cold, while other people carry on doing responsible things. As a result, I’ve tweeted a fair number of abortion-themed posts from this morning’s reading, but this bit from a Fr. Z. reader about chapel veils sums it all up better than anything. The reader, a Catholic high... Read more
Please welcome guest blogger Timothy Scott Reeves. Scott is a philosophy student, father of six, and all around good guy. He’s Anglican in the CS Lewis and early-GKC tradition, and circulates comfortably in the meat-world orthocathosphere. I always find his comments insightful and was pleased when he offered to write a guest post for this blog. Enjoy! Hashtags, Prayers, and Progressive Fundamentalists: A Lesson from Sister Simone What have fundamentalists to do with prayer? Everything…and nothing. They are... Read more
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