Via a Dominican friar and Blackfriars Music: Now that’s how you evangelize through media! Video by video … And that is such a beautiful, soothing, redirecting prayer in the midst of a busy week and the chaos of our lives here, as we seem to lose time and never have enough: Come my Way, my Truth, my Life: such a way as gives us breath. such a truth as ends all strife. such a life as killeth death. Come my... Read more
As anyone who reads this blog regularly knows, I am quite grateful for the monthly devotional Magnificat (some of whose creators have become friends -– though my addiction preceded the friendship). It’s well done and beautiful, also accessible and digestable in daily servings. Whether or not you subscribe, though, making time for daily spiritual nourishment -– prayerful reading -– is just essential to our lives, if we want to be authentic Christians. And so we try to drink in the... Read more
I was just re-reading this piece by the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus — who marched on Washington 50 years ago — on Martin Luther King Jr. After commenting on a biographer who wasn’t all that impressed with King’s preaching, Fr. Neuhaus shared: Every preacher who has been around a while finds consolation in the promise of Isaiah that “the word shall not return void.” To preach well is success. I recall rallies when, in the course of his preaching,... Read more
A homily for Monday; spiritual guidance includes this nugget: Say yes when you mean yes, say no when you mean no. The rest is from the Devil. Read more
While I did write one myself (The VMAization of America), the best reflection comes from Paul Claudel, via Magnificat Monday, from a meditation of his on the Apostles’ Creed: We live… in a state of disorder. There has been a corruption of the original order, of the order that charged all things to become visible; there has been a warping of certain wheels, which causes friction throughout the mechanism. The disorder cannot, by definition, be the work of the Creator,... Read more
Earlier this week, I spent way more time than I needed to reading — and then writing about –- a BBC profile in polyamory, that is: four people living together in “love.” (My Corner post about it is titled: “If Loving You Is Wrong, I Don’t Need Google Calendar.”) As we are reminded of the greatest commandment in the Gospel from Matthew today — ““You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and... Read more
From Sam Tadros yesterday in the Wall Street Journal: Why Virgin Mary Church endured until modern times is a mystery. Some churches in Cairo survived because Coptic popes made them their residence. Being built on a place Jesus and his mother had visited gave others in Egypt a claim to fame and a chance at survival, while in still others the miracles performed by the patron saint were a reason for pilgrims to visit and donate. Virgin Mary Church had... Read more
Whenever I am in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in D.C., I try to stop by the chapel remembering the life of St. Pius X, whose feast day we celebrate August 21. The prayer above the kneeler is one that reminds us of what we want and need, what the world needs: “heavenly wisdom and apostolic courage.” I pray for friends in high (so to speak, temporally speaking) places there. I pray for us all.... Read more
Tuesday’s Gospel, from Matthew, is a big dose of detachment. We’re told it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for the worldly to enter the kingdom of God. Like the jarring Gospel from Sunday, and the instruction to sell everything and follow yesterday, we sure need to hear it. It’s not the domesticated Jesus, as Fr. Barron has put it. This is not a Gospel of convenience. Christianity calls us... Read more
Sunday’s Gospel reading was a palpably unnerving one. One subject to misunderstanding, even, I suspect, temptations to frustration and anger. From Luke: Jesus said to his disciples: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell... Read more
Kathryn Lopez
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