Thanks (again!) to Daily Gospel Online, I was led to look at Christus Dominus, the Vatican II decree on the pastoral office of bishops. I found the following (long) passage impressive for what it calls a bishop to do. I have highlighted a few sentences that I found particularly striking: Bishops should dedicate themselves to their apostolic office as witness of Christ before all men. They should not only look after those who already follow the Prince of Pastors but... Read more
I have been listening to some online lectures about medieval theology, and am currently working through the metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas as part of his proofs of the existence of God. These are very much introductory lectures, so I don’t expect the lecturer to go into great detail or deal with subtleties. However, as I listen to his examples and explanations, some possibly naive counter-examples from quantum mechanics come to mind. For instance, discussing the principle that nothing can... Read more
Warning: this post is not terribly serious, and it gets a bit bawdy at the end. So if this is not to your taste, there is no need to read further. This all started with an odd remark by my son Francisco. Sitting at the dinner table with my wife, Gabrielle, and I, he made some comment about “a picture of Jesus riding a dinosaur.” Now I had never heard of such a thing, but a quick Google search... Read more
That yesterday, November 15, marked the start of the open enrollment period for the health insurance marketplace is a well-known fact at my current place of work, which may be about the only place in America where terms like “health insurance marketplace” or even “Obamacare” have little or no political connotations. They may elicit groans, but not for the reasons you might expect: for me and my coworkers as telephonic interpreters, what these terms primarily bring to mind is long and... Read more
After my post a few weeks ago about a Suor Cristina, the singing nun from Italy, I want to follow up with skateboarding friar. Hat tip to Brandon Vogt, who posted a remarkable video about Friar Gabriel, an Australian Franciscan who is a serious skateboarder whose superiors asked him to use his skills to evangelize. The post provides more details about the friar, but here is the video. Friar Gabriel, besides skating, also provided the music. This is not for... Read more
ON THE MORNING of our last full day in France, we took an intercity train from Paris out to Normandy. For this journey, we were not on the TGV, France’s futuristic high-speed train system. We were on an intercity express train, which, despite not being a proper bullet train, still moved with dispatch out of Paris and into the sylvan and achingly beautiful French countryside. We arrived in Caen about two hours after we started, and rented a car for... Read more
This is the edited text of a talk I gave yesterday, November 8, at the Regional Assembly of the Solanus Casey Region, Secular Franciscan Order. The regional council asked me to speak today on evangelization through peace and justice. This ties in well with the call to a New Evangelization that Pope Benedict XVI made a few years ago. Quite fortuitously, today [11/08/2014] is a very unhappy anniversary, one which provides a useful example for my talk today. On November... Read more
I recently returned from a trip to Europe – Italy, Swizerland and France. I’ll be posting a series of posts about what I saw there. Rome, the Eternal City, has me bewitched. Our first full day there, we awoke early and started at St. Peter’s Square, basically getting the lay of the land before we went there for real on Sunday for Mass. Then we took a walk in the general direction of the Pantheon, stopping practically every other block... Read more
Pope Francis has spoken frequently about the Devil, reminding his (Western) listeners that the Devil is real, that evil is personified and at times has a source beyond us. He spoke about this most recently last week during his daily homily, commenting on the reading from St. Paul to the Ephesians: Brothers and sisters: Draw your strength from the Lord and from his mighty power. Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm... Read more
Today, November 4, is Election Day in the United States. This is a public service announcement reminding all of our American readers who are registered to vote to please vote today. From our bishops we have this timely prayer: Lord God, as the election approaches, we seek to better understand the issues and concerns that confront our city/state/country, and how the Gospel compels us to respond as faithful citizens in our community. We ask for eyes that are free from... Read more
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