“The witness of Christian life given by parents”
The witness of Christian life given by parents in the family comes to children with tenderness and parental respect. Children thus perceive and joyously live the closeness of God and of Jesus made manifest by their parents in such a way that this first Christian experience frequently leaves decisive traces which last throughout life. This childhood religious awakening which takes place in the family is irreplaceable. It is consolidated when, on the occasion of certain family events and festivities, “care is taken to explain in the home the Christian or religious content of these...
Read More“This is what education is all about…”
I have been told that most of you come from Catholic high schools. For this reason I would like to say something about Catholic education, to tell you why the Church considers it so important and expends so much energy in order to provide you and millions of other young people with a Catholic education. The answer can be summarized in one word, in one person, Jesus Christ. The Church wants to communicate Christ to you. This is what education is all about, this is the meaning of life: to know Christ. To know Christ as a friend: as someone who cares about you and the person next to you, and...
Read More‘What must we do, to be doing the works of God?’
We cannot accept that salt should become tasteless or the light be kept hidden (cf. Mt 5:13-16). The people of today can still experience the need to go to the well, like the Samaritan woman, in order to hear Jesus, who invites us to believe in him and to draw upon the source of living water welling up within him (cf. Jn 4:14). We must rediscover a taste for feeding ourselves on the word of God, faithfully handed down by the Church, and on the bread of life, offered as sustenance for his disciples (cf. Jn 6:51). Indeed, the teaching of Jesus still resounds in our day with the same power:...
Read MoreWriting and Spiritual Development
The ancient muses, it was thought, helped create works of art and literature. But the God in whom I believe is about creating certain kinds of people, shaping them into men and women who believe, hope, and love. While I do think God cares about the works we create, I believe that God is more interested in the process and its effect upon us. God is in the dying – the struggle and the wounds and the agony, just as much as he is in the rising – the gleaming product at the end. Out of the chaos of the writing life, God is forming us to be people who are humbled, disciplined,...
Read More“No other objective than to arrive at love”
The whole concern of doctrine and its teaching must be directed to the love that never ends. Whether something is proposed for belief, for hope or for action, the love of our Lord must always be made accessible, so that anyone can see that all the works of perfect Christian virtue spring from love and have no other objective than to arrive at love. - The Roman Catechism no. 10 (quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church)
Read More“Love for Jesus and His Church must be the passion of our lives!”
I have been pondering for the past two days Archbishop Dolan’s presidential address at the USCCB General Assembly on Monday. If you haven’t read it, I heartily recommend the entire thing. (You can also watch the address on the USCCB web site; it’s in the first video at about the 39:30 mark.) The whole address is an eloquent reflection on the state of the Church in America while highlighting the archbishop’s deep spirituality and wit. If you don’t have time to read ten PDF pages, here are some of my favorite quotes: One thing we can’t help but remember, one...
Read MoreMan and Machine
While it may seem that in the industrial process it is the machine that “works” and man merely supervises it, making it function and keeping it going in various ways, it is also true that for this very reason industrial development provides grounds for reproposing in new ways the question of human work. Both the original industrialization that gave rise to what is called the worker question and the subsequent industrial and post-industrial changes show in an eloquent manner that, even in the age of ever more mechanized “work”, the proper subject of work continues to...
Read MoreLike Putting Skylarks in Cages
In spite of almost universal school custom, it must be said that God did not intend children of primary school age to sit assembled in desks and endure long formal lessons; if he did he would have made them differently. Least of all did he intend this to happen in teaching religion, and the whole idea of it is rather blasphemous, like putting skylarks in cages. - Rev. F.H. Drinkwater, Doctrine for the Juniors (1933)
Read More#NCCL2011 Opening Mass Homily – Four Points
Fr. Ron Cochran of St. Luke Catholic Church in El Cajon, California, celebrated this evening’s Mass for the NCCL conference in Atlanta. He gave a very nice reflection on this Sunday’s readings and, most helpfully, laid out his four main points: If we have faith in Christ, we will allow God to work through us. We can’t allow God to work through us unless we have died to ourselves. We offer spiritual sacrifices by offering ourselves on the altar with Christ. We do service so that we have something to bring to and offer on the altar. I will definitely be mulling over these...
Read MoreThe Catholic school does not lay claim to superiority
The Catholic school does not lay claim to superiority over another on purely secular lines, although in many cases its superiority is a very patent fact; it repudiates and denies charges to the effect that it is inferior, although this may be found in some cases to be true. It contends that it is equal to, as good as, any other; and there is no evidence why this should not be so. But it does pretend to give a more thorough education in the true sense of the word, if education really means a bringing out of that which is best in our nature. Neither do we hold that such a training as our...
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