“The Most Powerful Song Ever Written” – A Review Of The New Broadway Musical

Last updated on: September 19, 2015 at 2:11 pm By Tom Zampino

Veteran Broadway actor Chuck Cooper, who plays the slave Thomas (becoming later the free Pakuteh) in the new Christopher Smith musical Amazing Grace, captures precisely why John Newton’s 1779 hymn continues to charm hard-boiled New York City audiences onto their feet night after night to join, uninvited, the show’s breathlessly anticipated finale: This song is so powerful. This song transcends everything[.] It may well be the most powerful song ever written. I have to agree. I was one of those New Yorkers drawn in, lifted up,... Read more

John Henry Cardinal Newman: The Mission Of My Life

Last updated on: August 27, 2015 at 6:05 am By Tom Zampino

A morning prayer for this new day, from John Henry Cardinal Newman (via CatholiCity.com): The Mission Of My Life God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created... Read more

Everybody Must Get Stoned

Last updated on: August 24, 2015 at 8:54 pm By Tom Zampino

The story of the woman caught in adultery (John 8) has always shaken me to the core. I don’t know about you, but I’ve done all too many things in my life that could have gotten me stoned back then under the law of Moses. Hell, looking back over the years, there are a few things in my life that might have at least gotten me arrested even today. Or, at a minimum, totally and completely humiliated should they ever become publicly... Read more

Fulton Sheen: “Believe The Incredible And You Can Do The Impossible”

Last updated on: August 20, 2015 at 5:17 am By Tom Zampino

We’ve all read that Peter walked on water. But only for a minute. And then he sank. Why? We know that Peter could swim. So why did he sink? Venerable Fulton J. Sheen tells us (in video embedded below): He took his eyes off the Lord. He began to take account of the winds. He said “all nature’s against me” Christ then took Peter’s hand, admonished him for his lack of faith, and brought back into the boat. And suddenly... Read more

“Hell Is Other People” – Or, Where Bishop-Elect Barron And Jean-Paul Sartre Intersect

Last updated on: August 19, 2015 at 7:54 pm By Tom Zampino

Like most of you, back in either high school or college, I was assigned to read Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit. Sartre’s works were, of course, used as a basic introduction to existentialism. Not having spent much additional time in the study of philosophy beyond that, I for one would be hard pressed to impart even a basic working knowledge of what existentialism actually entails – beyond, that is, what I might be able to dig up after some quick Google research (which, by the... Read more

Blogging At Patheos, One Year In: Revisiting The Solemnity Of The Assumption

Last updated on: August 14, 2015 at 1:40 pm By Tom Zampino

One year ago today, I was given the great privilege of blogging here at Patheos. For me, this is a place to share with you my thoughts and my progress as I come to learn more and more about the Church – a Church to which I returned after 41 years away. I feel so incredibly honored to be a part of this group of faithful and extraordinarily talented writers, professors, authors, clergy, doctors, and media personalities. And I owe... Read more

One Young Man’s Struggle With SSA

Last updated on: August 12, 2015 at 7:02 am By Tom Zampino

Those of you following Grace Pending may have already read my review of Gay and Catholic, fellow-Patheos blogger Eve Tushnet‘s book about her life and her faith. Here’s what I said in my introduction at that time: The Catholic Church has long recognized that a not negligible number of men and women experience deep-seated homosexual tendencies. Catechism of the Catholic Church (“CCC”) 2358. It further recognizes that for many these tendencies constitute a very real trial. Importantly, the Church doesn’t try to analyze – either psychologically or... Read more

Five Minutes For Healing With Padre Pio

Last updated on: August 11, 2015 at 6:04 am By Tom Zampino

Prayer Of St. John Paul II On The Occasion Of The Canonization Of St. Padre Pio, June 16, 2002: Teach us, we ask you, humility of heart so we may be counted among the little ones of the Gospel, to whom the Father promised to reveal the mysteries of his Kingdom. Help us to pray without ceasing, certain that God knows what we need even before we ask him. Obtain for us the eyes of faith that will be able... Read more

Socialism’s Failures, Capitalism’s Constraints

Last updated on: August 10, 2015 at 12:15 pm By Tom Zampino

On the centenary of the publication of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, St. John Paul II issued Centesimus Annus, prompted, in part, by both the symbolic and the actual impact of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall just two years earlier. Centesimus Annus promulgated a three-fold invitation to “look back” at the text [of Rerum Novarum] in order to discover anew the richness of the fundamental principles which it formulated for dealing with the question of the condition of workers. But this... Read more

I Am Thomas Merton. And So Are You

Last updated on: August 6, 2015 at 7:40 am By Tom Zampino

I have mentioned before the influence that Thomas Merton has had on my reversion and growth. From his Seven Storey Mountain, to his simple, yet comprehensive everyday prayer, to his continuing impact even today, Merton has led me in ways that I do not yet, even now, fully comprehend. Several of Father Jim Martin‘s books led me directly to Merton. And so it is no exaggeration to say that because Thomas Merton changed Fr. Martin’s life, Merton has, indirectly at least, also changed mine. But... Read more