Blog of the Archdiocese of Washington
A reader alerted me to an interesting and insightful analysis by Pope Leo XIII of three trends that both alarmed him and pointed to future problems. He wrote of these three concerns in 1893 in the Encyclical on the Holy Rosary entitled Laetitiae Sanctae (Of Holy Joy). The Pope enunciates these three areas of concern …
The Lord says, “My Sheep hear my voice…” That’s right he called you a sheep. No come on, get a little indignant with me here! The Lord is comparing us, not to the swift eagle, , the beautiful gazelle, the mighty bear, the swift horse, the mighty lion, or the clever and intelligent dog. No, …
Continue reading “What Did Jesus Call Me? A Meditation on the Gospel for Good Shepherd Sunday”
In the following post I seek to lay out a few of the biblical texts related to the Church teaching against contraception. This is not a post intended to give a full defense of the teaching against contraception. I have done that elsewhere, e.g. HERE & HERE & HERE This post is intended only to …
Continue reading “A Look at Some Biblical Texts in Opposition to Contraception”
The video at the bottom of this post is of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. It is a fascinating excerpt from a longer video he did, where he analyzes the diabolical (anything of or relating to the Devil), from several different perspectives. In the excerpt I present, he identifies three characteristics of the diabolical by examining …
In the first reading for the second Sunday of Easter, (in the C cycle) we read from Acts 5:12-17. And as I heard this reading effectively proclaimed at the liturgies this weekend, it occurred to me that there is a portrait of the Church here. But even more, it is a challenge for us, to …
We have discussed before on this blog that we live in a culture where maturity is often significantly delayed. In fact there are many in our culture who never grow up. One paradigm of our culture is to that it is fixated on teenage years. Fixation is a psychological description of a person who has …
As we await word of a new Pope, there are some in the media and among our Protestant Brethren who are dismissive of the need for a Pope at all, or who indicate that the hierarchical structure of the Church ought to be replaced with more “modern” forms of governance. Never mind that Christ chose …
Continue reading “We Need the Pope, do not doubt it, as some do.”
This is a Gospel about a man who had two sons. And both of these sons forsook their father and refused to relive in relationship with him. Although, in our mind, both sons are very different at the level of personality, one outwardly rebellious, and the other outwardly obedient, inwardly, they have a very similar …
Continue reading “There was a man who had two sons: A Homily for the 4th Sunday of Lent”