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A meditation on the mystery of time…
I open our New Year’s Eve late night Mass (11:15 PM) with the observation that we begin Mass in one year and end in the next. New Year’s Eve highlights the mysterious passage between years. In a way I suppose it is no more mysterious than the passage from Thursday to Friday or from 10:00 AM to 10:01 AM. In one sense, nothing could be simpler than time. I might ask you, “What time is it?” You might reply, “It’s 1:15.” Simple! But time has mysteries about it. What is time? Some say it’s merely a measure of change. But that doesn’t really make a lot of sense because change doesn’t occur at a steady pace at all. Some say it’s just another way of measuring distance in the space-time continuum. Time and distance are certainly related. To look out at the stars at night is to look into the past; i...
The quest and questions of the Magi…
(And Then I Wrote…) Since this site began more than six years ago, every Thursday I have been publishing a reprint from my column “Across the Universe” in the British Catholic journal, The Tablet. I have finally gone through all of them (except for 2019’s columns) and I’ve even re-published a few of the oldest ones that came out here before our readership had grown. In order to let my backlog build up a bit, I am taking “Across the Universe” offline for 2020. Instead, I am republishing a selection of other articles that I have written an published in various places… often obscure. This one is not so obscure, and in fact it’s a reprint of a posting here from four years ago… but I thought it would be appropriate to show it aga...
Teen climber falls 500 feet on Mount Hood — and survives…
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Three-year abuse lawsuit window opens in California…
Sacramento, Calif., Jan 2, 2020 / 10:00 am (CNA).- A three-year window opened in California Wednesday, allowing lawsuits over childhood sexual abuse that would normally be impeded by the state’s statute of limitations. The window was created when California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed AB 218 into law in October. In addition to the window, the bill also permanently adjusted the state’s statute of limitations for civil suits regarding childhood sexual abuse. Previously, a person had until the age of 26, or three years after discovering damages from sexual abuse, to file a claim. The state now allows plaintiffs to file lawsuits until the age of 40, or five years after discovering damage. The California Catholic Conference said in a statement released at the bill’s signing that the state’s bi...
The Sisters of Life show the way to unshackled freedom in 2020…
Sisters of Life nuns sing hymns following a papal mass conducted by Pope Francis in Philadelphia, Pa., in 2015. (Mark Makela/Reuters) Learning real freedom from some joyful, loving women ‘This time, with freedom!” Sisters Mary Karen and Mary Gabriel implored. It was a rare “off” day for Sisters of Life from different convents getting to be together at their motherhouse in the suburbs of New York. And they did what any healthy family might do on the second night of the octave of Christmas — they gathered around an outdoor Nativity scene with fire for warmth and sang carols, and eventually other devotional songs. Some of the younger sisters (this is a youthful community, not even 30 years since its founding) had just got done with a hopping Pentatonix “O Come, All Ye Faithful” mix. Advertise...
I still have hope that Christ will bring my kids back to the faith…
We could feel tremors before the break, the shift in how she spoke, in how she treated others. We could see his heart hardening to God, to the Church, to us. Some would say that’s adolescence, but it always felt like more. Praying, engaging, hugging, creating special time—we did all of that and it kept our relationships alive, like blowing on the embers. We weren’t saints about it, we were parents. We’d be too hard, too soft, too talky, too quiet, too prayerful, and yet not witnessing enough. It felt like trying to maintain a sandcastle against the high tide of the world. It felt like the world would win and children would leave. As parents, it felt like the waves crashing over. There’s no small amount of soul searching that goes on when someone you love leaves the faith. You look for that...
Kids, don’t be like Redskins owner Dan Snyder. Be courteous and classy like Giants owner John Mara instead…..
Kids, be John Mara. Don’t be Dan Snyder. Today’s lesson in character comes from the annual NFL bloodbath when teams fire their failing coaches the day after the season ends. The New York Giants fired their head coach, the Washington Redskins their president, having fired their coach in mid-season. The Giants stumbled through two seasons with head coach Pat Shurmur. They won 9 games and lost 23. They did worse the second season than they did the first. That wasn’t all his fault. The general manager Dave Gettleman made some bone-headed moves (and the team still suffered the effects of his incompetent predecessor), some new players didn’t play as well as expected, some key players got injured. His players supported him, and sometimes the Giants looked like a really good team. But he didn’t do...
A new heart for a New Year, always!…
As Time cries, “Advance!”, we look back on a year that might fill the mouth of Time with lamentation. The Syrian civil war, the Christchurch mosque massacre, economic collapse in Venezuela, Hong Kong protests, the El Paso Walmart shooting, the Sri Lanka Easter terror attack, the Notre-Dame fire, and political upheaval in America. What is the common man to conclude when considering the depravations and deprivations of his fellows as church bells chime on New Year’s Eve? There is no better tale to ring an old year out and a new year in than Charles Dickens’s The Chimes. This little story by the great storyteller deals with the temptation to look back on the tragedies of a year gone by with dejection, even believing that man is “born bad.” While Catholics do not believe that man is born bad, ...
The evolution of the coffee cup lid…
[embedded content] Author AJ Jacobs shows how the coffee cup lid was perfectly designed to give you a full sensory experience while drinking.
Pope Francis apologizes for losing patience with woman who grabbed him in viral video…
Vatican City, Jan 1, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis apologized Wednesday for losing his patience with a woman who grabbed his arm in St. Peter’s Square on New Year’s Eve. “Many times we lose our patience; me too. I apologize for yesterday’s bad example,” Pope Francis said in a departure from his prepared remarks for the Angelus prayer Jan. 1. While greeting the crowd in front of the Vatican nativity scene Dec. 31, a woman yanked the pope’s arm. Visibly upset, Pope Francis slapped her hand and walked away frustrated. After his impromptu apology, the pope said that contemplating the nativity scene helps one to see with the eyes of faith a vision of “the renewed world, freed from the dominion of evil and placed under the royal lordship of Christ, the Child who lies in the manger.”...
What’s the one thing journalists need to learn from the Christianity Today firestorm?
Let’s consider this an educational moment. Since journalists are paying lots of attention, right now, to Christianity Today and other things linked to the late Billy Graham, let’s do a flashback to some poll numbers published in the fall of 2018. This polling was done by the Billy Graham Center Institute at Wheaton College, working with LifeWay Research. One of the goals was to understand why evangelicals voted the way that they did in 2016. Lots of things grabbed my attention, but here are some numbers that I think journalists need to ponder at the moment in light of the recent CT editorial by departing editor Mark Galli. You may have heard about it. The headline proclaimed: “Trump Should Be Removed from Office.” But back to CT in 2018. The bytes that jumped out at me: * Only half of the ...
The lies of Netflix’s ‘The Two Popes’…
Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce in The Two Popes (Netflix) First Things has comprehensively demolished the new Netflix movie The Two Popes, starring Anthony Hopkins as a grumpy Pope Benedict and Jonathan Pryce as a radiant Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, today known as Pope Francis. Netflix is spending huge sums trying to win Oscar nominations for the picture, which was directed by the acclaimed Brazilian Fernando Meirelles. (Netflix is spending huge sums on a lot of things this season.) If you don’t write about movies for a living, you may be under the impression that filmmakers telling stories about real people make at least some vague gestures in the direction of truth. You would be wrong. The movie is about Bergoglio contemplating retirement but instead being summoned to see Pope Benedict...
