When I was young and in Confirmation class, we were taught there are five types of prayers: Adoration, Praise, Thanksgiving, Intercession, and Petition. That I
Over the last couple of years I have engaged in some specific and focused intercessory prayer. Fortunately, I have been blessed with a lot of
“Why is all this complicated theology necessary? Doesn’t it just create things for people to argue about and separate churches from each other? Why isn’t
Memento mori is Latin for “remember that you must die,” as in “the only inevitable things in life are death and taxes.” Having just recently
When I was young there was a popular poster that stated “War is not healthy for children and other living things.” These days we call
Robert A. Heinlein poses an interesting question in his 1966 novel “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.” Heinlein has one of his characters ask “Under
I have written before about trust as an element of faith (see Growing Our Faith Through Obedience And Trust). Trusting takes practice. At about the
As all Catholics should know, Advent is the beginning of our church year. It’s a time when we remember the world waiting for the coming
It does not take a bible scholar to guess that when I refer to a grouchy curmudgeon in service to God, I am thinking of
One of my favorite internet memes, going quiet and then recurring over the years with a regularity Halley’s Comet might envy, goes something like this:
I still occasionally hear the old platitude of “Love the sinner; hate the sin.” I find, however, that in practice people are often much better
It is high August in Texas and that means hot. In parts of the state hot means humid and sultry to suffocating, while in other
Occasionally I hear someone say “I think of myself as a spiritual person, but I’m not religious.” The implication is that “being spiritual” is somehow
When it comes to anger, it seems to be a good news / bad news situation these days. The good news is that everybody in
Despite what a popular yard sign asserts, kindness is not everything. But kindness is one important form of love in action. From the point of
More years ago than I care to remember, I was settling into my seat in my high school Algebra II class when one of my
Because the Devil is the father of lies, it follows that temptations are built on a foundation of lies. Some of the lies are small,
Everybody gets the blues. But some people really get the blues in the form of depression. For many people depression involves brain chemistry, which means
One morning, walking from the parking garage to the office, I voiced in prayer an all-to-familiar complaint: “Why am I hanging around here when I
When I was someplace between ages 3 and 5, my imaginary friends were Crocodile (the ticking one, from Peter Pan) and the Baby Jesus. Years
A couple of years ago I was talking to a priest who, as a deacon, had been instrumental in my decision to become a Roman
Our parish Chaplain delivered an interesting observation while talking about an upcoming Saturday event on prayer. It was insightful. “I don’t know why people think
