Beyond Parish Boundaries

I want to thank all of you for your outpouring of food, clothing, gifts, and gift cards to inner-city residents.  Over the past week, you have filled my garage with grocery bags for Saint Therese Little Flower’s food pantry and Saint James’ thrift store to help fellow citizens get through the summer and gain a […]

Succeed On Our Own

A mother of four young children recently reminded me that a primary task of parents is to teach children to get along without them, to succeed on their own, to develop skills so that they can take care of themselves, interact well with others, develop talents, solve problems, and achieve goals.  I wonder if the […]

Right To Speak

Freedom of Speech, as spelled out in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, protects the right of individuals or communities to openly articulate opinions and ideas without interference, retaliation, or punishment from the government.  We see that freedom expressed on college campuses and across the American landscape, especially as spring turns to summer.  […]

Mother’s Day Reflection

(Written by Cindy Lange-Kubich) This is for all the mothers who didn’t win Mother of the Year, all the runner-ups and wannabes, the mothers who’re too tired to enter, or too busy to care.  This for all the mothers who froze their buns off on metal bleachers at soccer games Friday nights instead of watching […]

Urban Adaptation

I am concerned about maintaining our Catholic presence in Kansas City’s urban core in the future.  We have a limited number of priests serving our diocese; the bishop and diocesan leaders must send priests where Catholics live and worship to provide sacraments—there is not a proportionate number of Catholics living or worshipping in our inner […]

Kids & The Easter Story

Dr. Ralph Wilson, director of Joyful Heart Renewal Ministries, once wrote: “If you ask your average heathen youngster what Easter is about, he’ll tell you about the Easter bunny and finding decorative baskets filled with annoying plastic grass that sticks to every household furnishing and those pastel foil-covered football things that are a sad excuse […]

Well, That’s One Thing We’ve Got

“You say we’ve got nothing in common, no common ground to start from, and that we’re falling apart…And I said, ‘What about Breakfast at Tiffany’s?’ And she said, ‘I think I remember that film, and as I recall, we both kinda liked it.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s one thing we’ve got’.” Those lyrics from […]

Valentine’s Day Massacre

On Valentine’s Day, 1929, in Chicago, when tension between organized crime gangs and city police exploded, there was a bloody massacre that is still talked about today.  Four years later in June, at Kansas City’s Union Station, another bloodbath occurred when local mobs and what later became the FBI tangled in a similarly notorious shoot-out.  […]

Reactivated Podcast

A year ago, working with a wonderful team at Rockhurst, we activated a podcast with the same title as my blog: “Upon This Rock.”  We began by interviewing Alvin Brooks, for whom the future Alvin Brooks Center for Faith-Justice is named; his life and inspiring words encourage us to lay rock-solid foundations in our society […]

Year of Prayer

Two thousand and twenty-four has been named a Year of Prayer by the Holy Father.  This designation is made in preparation for the Jubilee or Holy Year of 2025.  In a sense, this is to be a quiet year amidst the thunder of war, noise of political campaigns, screeching sounds of local and global unrest, […]