Blog of the Archdiocese of Washington
The Feast of St. Mark that we celebrated today is a reminder that the Gospel occurs in the human setting and condition. Somehow I thought of this on this feast for Mark, also known as “John Mark” was at the center of tension between Paul and Barnabas and the differences were so severe that it …
Continue reading “On The Story of Mark and What it teaches us About Reconciliation”
Many of us who are a bit older, say age 50 and older, remember a time when the Church, at least in terms of numbers, seemed much more vigorous. And those who remember even longer, who were born before 1950 and lived in the northern cities, remember a time when Catholic parishes were like enormous …
Continue reading “A Meditation on a Magnificent Description of The Immigrant Church of 1900-1950”
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 …