Guest post by Allison When I walked into our church one afternoon this week for choir rehearsal, I immediately noticed the purple cloths draped over the statues of Madonna and Child, St. Therese of Liseux, St. Joseph, St. Paul, and St. Anthony of Padua. Draped too, behind the ambo, was the sculpted stone depiction of the four Gospels. Thursday morning, two elderly male parishioners stood on a stepladder to cover the large crucifix above the altar in purple cloth, too.One of... Read more
This is your co-pilot once again. It is a beautiful afternoon up here in the cockpit. Cruising now at only 10,000 feet. We’re safe from small arms fire, but still within range of SAM’s (Surface to Air missles). Oh I don’t want to alarm you or anything, but as we get closer to the end of Lent, the cross-country flight will draw to a close and we’ll be back to flying sorties over enemy territory. Close Air Support, etc. Ten... Read more
Our esteemed guest poster Allison Salerno has a nose for news. Thanks to which, I’m having steak for dinner! What, no fish on Friday during Lent?! Not thanks to my patron saint, Joseph, whose solemnity we celebrate today. I say it’s just another good reason to cultivate a devotion to the husband of the Virgin Mary and the Custodian of our Redeemer. Thanks, St. Joe! Here’s the word from the Archdiocese of Chicago, forwarded by Allison:FRIDAY ABSTINENCE SUSPENDED THIS FRIDAY... Read more
Two years ago today, I realized that I didn’t want to take Thomas (More) as my confirmation name, I wanted to take Joseph. Taking “A Man for All Seasons” as my patron was aiming too high, I thought: statesman, writer, martyr. Joseph was more my speed: husband, father, worker. It was a fortuitous choice. Three days later was the Easter Vigil, and my father drove up from Connecticut to witness my reception into the Catholic Church. Three months later, Dad... Read more
I was talking with a friend at breakfast the other day, and we were talking about Communion and Liberation (CL), the ecclesial movement in which we both take part. A thought jumped to the tip of my tongue, then out into the room. And as thoughts can do, it is still knocking around in my head. My friend was asking why the readings for CL are so obtuse. And of course he’s right. Reading the books of Father Luigi Giussani... Read more
This week we read Book IV, Chapters 9,10, and 11. Can you hear Barry Manilow sing Looks like we made it? Are you turning cartwheels or heaving a sigh of relief? Show of hands: How many of you actually stuck it out and read the whole thing? On second thought, don’t answer that. Don’t worry about it either, because you could get away with reading just Book IV of Mere Christianity and come away with a new appreciation for the... Read more
If you don’t believe that Church tradition develops under the influence of the Holy Spirit, listen to how St. Joseph has been almost methodically “upgraded,” along with the Holy Family, by one Pope after another since the nineteenth century. This was not just a case of Popes waking up in the middle of the night and thinking to themselves, “Gee, I’d like to do something nice for St. Joe.” In 1870, at a difficult time in the Church’s history, Pope... Read more
It’s St. Patrick’s Day, so we’d best pick an Irish poet for this regular feature—or else I’ll be in Dutch with my Irish wife, the erstwhile Katie McNiff. Yeats or Wilde? That was my question. Oscar Wilde, for all his flamboyance, had a deeply spiritual side. (Read his “De Profundis” some day when you feel that God is far away.) But with one daughter of mine being received into the Catholic Church at Easter and the other embarked on an... Read more
This series of posts on St. Joseph has drawn few formal comments to YIM Catholic. But friends have taken me aside, both in person and on line, to say that St. Joseph has attracted their attention. At the end of our visit today, my real-life friend Joan of Beverly noted the remarkable coincidence that devotion to St. Joseph is peaking in an age when the family is under attack more than ever. On-line friends Mujerlatina and Maria have been commenting... Read more
Guest post by Allison I don’t have any delusions about the human race. We’ve been messing up our lives ever since Eve ate that apple. While we all keep sinning, in recent years in our popular culture a new trend has taken hold: celebrating sin.This phenomenon allows us to label some people “bad boys and girls” and leaves the rest of us off the hook. If we are busy laughing at Octomom or Jon Gosselin, we don’t have to spend time... Read more
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