I just added a pandemic prayer, Pope Francis’ “Prayer to Mary during Coronavirus Pandemic,” to my daily prayer routine. Here is this beautiful prayer, translated by Catholic News Service: Prayer to Mary during coronavirus pandemic O Mary, you always shine on our path as a sign of salvation and of hope. We entrust ourselves to you, Health of the Sick, who at the cross took part in Jesus’ pain, keeping your faith firm. You, Salvation of the Roman People, know... Read more
Who am I? It’s a question addressed in parlor games, odd moments of reflection and the dense prose of theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. Wading through The von Balthasar Reader, I got to a short section on what it means to be a person. Balthasar names two approaches to an answer. I can compile a list of things that make me unique among all the human species. Or I can get to the heart of the matter and risk encountering... Read more
Today Common Prayer for Ordinary Radicals remembers the not-so-ordinary radical Oscar Romero. It is the day in 1980 that Bishop Romero was assassinated while celebrating Mass. He became a target of the repressive government of El Salvador because of his commitment to social justice and prophetic advocacy for the poor. Workers, not master builders Common Prayer gives us this quote from Romero’s writings. It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. The Kingdom is not... Read more
Before the corona virus epidemic, I was a climate change pessimist. I’m a bit more hopeful now, and that might seem strange. But consider: We’ve gone in a very short time from “It’s just another flu” to social distancing. People are actually working hard at solving this one crisis. Maybe that experience is transferable to a crisis that is similar. Anyway, today I’m thinking about what we can learn from corona. We’re still sleeping through the climate crisis, but corona... Read more
I’m reading the e-mails of Rachel Corrie, whom I’m counting among the “ordinary radicals” of my series of posts on that theme. A short paragraph in the March 16 entry of Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals brought into my world this courageous human being and another way of living humanly. Rachel Corrie was killed on March 16, 2003, by an Israeli bulldozer on the streets of Rafah in Gaza. She was trying to protect the home of a... Read more
Military Wiki, a free military encyclopedia to which anyone can contribute, isn’t all about honor on the battlefield. I was surprised to find there an article about St. Maximilian of Thavaste (today Tebessa in Algeria). He was beheaded by the sword, a weapon he refused to take up. This is a post in the series on Ordinary Radicals. Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals remembers Maximilian in its March 12 entry. The prayer book notes that this is also... Read more
In economics globalization seems inevitable if anything is. But at a recent Vatican meeting of finance ministers and experts, Meeting participants agreed it was no longer acceptable science to consider any market philosophy or policy as being “natural,” invisible or inevitable, but that economics is all about people picking and choosing specific rules and frameworks. (Catholic News Service article, reprinted in Chicago Catholic) Pope Francis also spoke at the meeting, sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. World leaders... Read more
For a communicator bishop like Bishop Robert Barron, Letter to a Suffering Church, on the sexual abuse crisis would have been almost impossible not to write. Given the bishop’s apologetic mission, you could expect such a letter would be a defense of the Church, and you’d be right. It’s far from a defense of clerics’, including bishops’, actions, though. As you can also expect knowing Barron’s work, it is an appeal to stay with the Church – stay and fight.... Read more
Consumer Culture engages powerfully in our moral and spiritual formation. That formation, William T. Cavanaugh says, appropriates some Christian elements but distorts them. This is the fourth in the series on Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire. “How we relate to the world is a spiritual discipline,” Cavanaugh says. (p. 47) If that is the case, then our consumer culture is especially good at disciplining us spiritually. Cavanaugh looks at two ways consumerism carries on this discipline. It instills an attitude... Read more
What? Ash Wednesday was two days ago, and I haven’t sworn for going on three days. What do you mean, Lent will start on Sunday? The answer is a matter of arithmetic. How do you count Lent’s40 days? In this post I will present what I learned from a liturgist, whose name I forgot, back in the 70’s. I have not heard this method of counting anywhere else, so judge for yourself. I think it makes more sense than what... Read more
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