Human from Womb to Tomb

    March 25 is the feast of the Annunciation, the annual celebration of the angel’s announcement to the Virgin Mary that she would conceive and give birth to Jesus. Since March 25 falls in Holy Week this year, its celebration has been postponed to the second week of Easter....
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Sing Her to Sleep

    The gentle summer day my friend made her journey from home to hospice was marked by a little parade of loved ones. As the medics carried her to the ambulance, her sisters, husband, and daughter filed out into the sunshine behind her, and for reasons I cannot...
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President Biden on Abortion: Time for Church Discipline?

  Before President Joe Biden delivered the 2024 State of the Union address, the question on the minds of most was, Will the president have the get-up-and-go to complete the speech without a disastrous stumble? His delivery made clear that he indeed had the energy, but...
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Back to Go Forward

    C.S. Lewis, the Cambridge medievalist and philosopher, had a rule-of-thumb: Read two old books for every new one. By so doing, one can avoid “chronological snobbery,” by which he meant unreflectively assuming we know better than those who have gone before us. We are...
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Jesus’ Transfiguration—and Ours

    The gospel reading for the second Sunday in Lent, this year on February 25 in the “Common Lectionary” (used by Catholics and several other churches), comes from St. Mark’s account of the transfiguration of Jesus, who took Peter, James, and John up a “high mountain”...
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What Is Lent?

  What is Lent? The Collect for Ash Wednesday Mass gives us the answer: “Grant, O Lord, that we may begin with holy fasting this campaign of Christian service, so that, as we take up battle against spiritual evils, we may be armed with weapons of self-restraint.” This...
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The Messianic Secret and Pro-Life Purpose

  Last year my pastoral role required me to take issue with one of our local pro-life organizations. Their leader had invited a notorious Catholic firebrand to speak, and I expressed my dissatisfaction with the choice. The leader retorted, “But he takes a strong pro-life...
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Death and AI and Resurrection

    A teenager was murdered in a mass shooting at his school in 2018. By 2020, his parents had founded a nonprofit which, among other things, produced a political commercial. The ad opens with an introduction by the parents. Then these words appear on the screen: “We...
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For the Love of a Worm

    It has been almost thirty years since I met Derek, but I can still hear his mother’s words echoing in my mind. “This is Derek,” she said as her cherubic looking toddler looked up at me, “He’ll be trouble.” I wondered, in that moment, how a mother could choose to...
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Preach the Gospel, Heal the Church  

    Preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. 2 Timothy 4:2 (RSV) Hundreds of thousands of abortions occur each year in the United States. Many of the women (and men) involved in these...
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