Our annual Lenten journey begins in an ash heap that offers us numerous experiences and encounters. Marked with a sign of mortality, ashes in the form of a cross on our forehead, we embark on a pilgrimage of encounter. It starts by recalling that we are of the earth—ashes to ashes and dust to dust—and, […]
Missouri weather this time of year can fluctuate markedly with several consecutive days of temperatures in the seventies followed by several in the teens before reversing again. This lion-lamb effect goes beyond atmospheric pressures and barometric measures, for there is also fluctuation within the Lenten soul. As we journey from Ashes to Easter, it’s like […]
As we proceed through Lent and life, we might do well to take cues from some church leaders of the past, like Pope Francis, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, and Jesus. The way of proceeding through synodality is like the Ignatian Way of Proceeding. They are both based in prayer that listens to the Holy Spirit […]
As mid-February takes us from Friday the Thirteenth to Valentine’s Day to the Lord’s Day to President’s Day to Mardi Gras to Ash Wednesday…each day might feel like an emotional rollercoaster with thoughts of human love, divine love, love of nation, celebration, bad luck, mortality, and the journey of life. This continual shifting of gears […]
Many of us in our sixties have a diminishing interest in company policies, work regulations, and job procedures. It is true in my case. At this stage, I can increasingly profess what I have always believed: that as a priest I can be a better instrument of the Lord without being a cogwheel of the […]
Outgoing United States Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was recently asked if he had any advice for his successor. He responded, “Don’t get pulled into the politics.” Regardless of one’s job or position in life, it is easy to get sucked into politics. It happens in church, school, health care, law firms, union jobs, family […]
The greatest happiness a person can experience, I think, is feeling close to God. It can also be overwhelming. Perhaps your concept of God is the one power that overcomes all other powers—or a love more powerful than either life or death. Maybe your sense of the unknowable entity that we call God is relief […]
This week, after two years and 107 episodes, I suspended weekly podcast recordings of Upon this Rock. The final chapter, which you can listen to here summarizes what I and the FSC (Farnan Spirituality Center) Board hoped to accomplish by joining the webcast market. There are many “godcasts” in the web world, an existence that […]
In The Two Popes, Benedict XVI and Francis watch a World Cup soccer match between their home countries, Germany and Argentina. That is fiction. In reality, however, Francis was a big fan. In his homily one World Youth Day he proclaimed, “Jesus offers us something bigger than the World Cup! He offers us the possibility […]
Just as our church has annual holy days to honor noble saints so does our nation have annual holidays to honor noble citizens. As we approach Martin Luther King Day (January 19), we’ll be reminded that it is not supposed to be a day off but a day on; some think of it not as […]
