Vox Nova - Page 3 of 556 -

It’s Not Really About the Issues

November 4, 2018 By Julia Smucker

Granted, it’s never entirely not about the issues. The lawmakers we elect will invariably make decisions that will affect any number of human lives in any number of ways, and we the electorate know this. And yet it is for that very reason, in a bizarre twist of political irony befitting the absurdity of these times, that the issues our would-be lawmakers are pontificating on with apocalyptic fervor in their bids for our votes are presently of secondary concern. Secondary, that… Read more

Much will be required of the person entrusted with much.

October 24, 2018 By Julia Smucker

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Today being the anniversary of my confirmation, I decided to mark the day by going to daily Mass. The celebrant began his homily at the end of the gospel reading: “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.” He asked us to think about our blessings: the blessing of life, of health, of faith – and in the United States, a standard of living surpassing that… Read more

A quick question on “sacrifice” versus “oblation”

October 23, 2018 By David Cruz-Uribe

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For October my parish is doing a short program on the Eucharist, and this has led me to listen a little more closely to the Eucharistic prayers. This past Sunday, a couple words leapt out at me: “oblation” and “sacrifice.” Oblation is an obscure word in English, and my guess is that in the previous English translation, it was translated as “offering.” And in fact the new translation uses both words for the same underlying Latin word (see below)…. Read more

Speaking to the Laity about the Crisis

October 4, 2018 By voxnovablog

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Vox Nova is pleased to welcome a guest post by long time reader Joseph Georges. It is now clear to many that the scandal of clerical sexual abuse is the most serious crisis the church has faced since the Reformation. (Massimo Faggioli in Commonweal, 8/8/18). “This summer has been anything but a church picnic for us. It’s been a disaster, one crisis after another. And as I try my best to listen to people, I hear them express very eloquently… Read more

Welcome a new blogger

September 15, 2018 By David Cruz-Uribe

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Vox Nova is pleased to welcome a new blogger, Mark Gordon. In fact, we are pleased to welcome back an old blogger: Mark wrote for us in 2011-13 before moving on to work with some other blogs. You can find his earlier work in our archives. For those who do not know him, here is a short biography: Mark Gordon is a businessman, nonprofit leader, and writer. In addition to managing his own web development firm, he is president of… Read more

The Self-Protective Impulse Rears its Ugly Head Again

September 14, 2018 By Julia Smucker

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Nos autem gloriari oportet in cruce Domini nostri Jesu Christi, in quo est salus, vita, et resurrectio nostra, per quem salvati et liberati sumus. We should glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom is our salvation, life and resurrection, through whom we are saved and delivered. –Entrance antiphon for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross Pope Francis’ preferential option for the peripheries has been reflected, among other things, in his choice of cardinals,… Read more

Labor Justice in the Gig Economy

September 3, 2018 By Julia Smucker

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It’s Labor Day, and I would welcome work. At this time last year I was, by my own choice, in transition from a more conventional full-time job with a single employer to a more nebulous, semi-freelance one with multiple employers that define me variably as a casual employee, per diem employee, or contractor. It seems a strange choice to make for someone with a temperamental preference for structure and regularity, and I still wonder at that aspect of it. Truth… Read more