BLOG: Deacon-structing,Lent and Easter
Thanks to Colleen Dulle who reached out to me via Twitter and shared this video that was made by the Archdiocese of St. Louis, Missouri. Great idea to celebrate marriage! (Maybe Noel in his Weekly Round-up could dig up some other videos people have made about Marriage.) My weekly round-up has been that in the ...read more
Last week we looked again at something I wrote in 2009 about the nature and design of Marriage. I am curious to know your thoughts on this and whether you think it makes sense. If there are any moral theologians out there, please comment as you would know better than I whether my argument that all Church ...read more
Last week, I asked for your ideas. How would you define Marriage? The point is not to re-define Marriage, but to try to figure out what Marriage really is and why the Church teaches what she teaches about the true nature and design of Marriage. The first comment I received was from Rosemarie via Facebook: “Marriage ...read more
So here we go…. I’ve been sitting here pondering on the SCOTUS decision of last week, legalising same-sex marriage in all of the U.S. and all I kept thinking of was “But, what is marriage?” Who decides what marriage is? Why is marriage of any concern to the state? Who designed marriage in the first place? ...read more
This is a reflection for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, year B. The readings are Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24; Psalm 30; 2 Corinthians 8:7, 9, 13-15 and Mark 5:21-43. God did not make death. That’s what I kept thinking last Saturday. You see, I was in Poland and last Saturday I had the chance to ...read more
Laudato Si is so complete and so radical that it will take years for us to unpack it fully. There is a lot there, but one of the themes that has most moved me (and this was not surprising) is encapsulated by this statement from the introduction: “The violence present in our hearts, wounded by ...read more
Very few of us would argue that we have to care for the environment, in fact Pope Francis has said that it is our moral duty to care for Creation (Morning Homily from Feb 9, 2015). How does this notion square with the idea that Scripture tells us to dominate and subdue the earth? I ...read more
A few events the last couple weeks have led me to today’s reflection. Primarily, the fact that the Vatican has announced that Pope Francis will be releasing his second Encyclical later this month and that the topic of this papal document is the ecology. Add to that, the incredible response the news has garnered from ...read more
The problem with holiness is that we don’t think it’s for us. We believe that we are made for Heaven. We believe that God wants us to go to Heaven, but how many of us would say that we belong in Heaven? How many of us would say that we are going to Heaven? Sure, ...read more
Last time ,we looked at what Scriptures tell us about Heaven. Perhaps we do know more about Heaven than we think. Well, I guess, at least we know with certainty that we are going to die. So what happens when we die? We believe that we will be judged for our actions during this life. But ...read more