Ordinary Time – Feast Day of Alphonsus Ligori Alphonsus Ligouri was a learned man, a great lawyer who lost only one case during his eight years of practice, a great confessor and moral theologian. In a time when penitents were treated as criminals who must be punished, he treated all who came to him with kindness, […]
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Ordinary Time – Feast Day of Ignatius Loyola Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, but even more important, originator of the Ignatian method of prayer, the examen, author of the 30 day Ignatian retreat and a guide for discernment of spirits. He was also a patron for those confined to bed for long recoveries. Wounded […]
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Ordinary Time – Feast Day of St. Martha Martha, so busy about so many things, the work horse. She is the one you can count on, the one who takes care of all of the details, all of the organizing and arrangements. She is the keeper of the calendar for all family members, the one […]
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Ordinary Time – Season of Stability The walls are a tacky green, the carpet an even tackier blue-green. There isn’t much to it. It’s no dream house, but it was theirs. Theirs to live in as long as they make those monthly payments. Theirs to paint. They can put in a new carpet, make it […]
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Ordinary Time – Season of Stability “I’m bored.” “Boring.” “Bored, bored, bored!” How I hate those words. Bored people sometimes act crazy to relieve their boredom. Children pick fights. Teenagers dare each other to do things they later regret. Some married couples seek extramarital affairs. Some adults throw away jobs, careers. How can anyone find […]
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Ordinary Time – Season of Stability Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn’t be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn’t know it so it goes on flying anyway. (Mary Kay Ash) Or so the myth goes. Still I love the idea. The humble bumble bee can teach us a few tricks! Sometimes it’s better if […]
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Ordinary Time – Season of Stability “It’s very hard to hate somebody you are praying for,” a friend once told me. The wisdom of these words! The very nature of prayer, if it is sincere, will lead us to see our enemies with new eyes, to have a growing compassion for them. It’s very hard […]
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Ordinary Time – Season of Stability “To pray is to dream in league with God,” according to Rabbi Abraham Heschel. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, book three of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, there is an island where all of your dreams come true. At first the travelers thought this would be a wonderful […]
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Ordinary Time – Season of Stability It seems there is never enough time to do what we want to do; never enough time with loved ones or to finish projects. Chronological time stops for no-one, but there is another time: Kairos time, God’s time. In God’s time there is always enough. Everything happens when it […]
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Ordinary Time – Season of Stability As a cradle Catholic, I’ve been reciting the same prayers for sixty years. Of course I have them memorized, er, actually, I do and I don’t. Sometimes the lines are so familiar that I forget them. The words role off of my tongue as long as I don’t stop. […]
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