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Last year the Feast of the Epiphany came and went for my wife and me during our first year of marriage, however, later that day we said to each other that when our child is born next year, we would like to start the tradition of blessing our home each year. Today, just around two hours ago, after getting home from 7:30 AM Mass and eating breakfast, together, with our son in my wife’s arms, we blessed our home with the Epiphany Home Blessing. We said the prayers together, I marked the door frames and the outside door with the inscription (see below) and then went from room to room blessing each space with our small bottle of Epiphany Water. Above our front door If you have never done this short ceremony with your family, I would highly encourage you to do so today or tomorrow, most especial...

The new and much-ballyhooed Netflix film The Two Popes should, by rights, be called The One Pope, for it presents a fairly nuanced, textured, and sympathetic portrait of Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope Francis) and a complete caricature of Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI). This imbalance fatally undermines the movie, whose purpose, it seems, is to show that old grumpy, legalistic Benedict finds his spiritual bearings through the ministrations of friendly, forward-looking Francis. But such a thematic trajectory ultimately does violence to both figures, and turns what could have been a supremely interesting character study into a predictable and tedious apologia for the filmmaker’s preferred version of Catholicism. That we are dealing with a caricature of Ratzinger becomes clear when, in the...

By Tom Hoopes, January 2, 2020 Certain stories in the Gospel take us by surprise. The three temptations of Christ, with the devil whisking Jesus around like a magician. The beheading of John the Baptist as a prize for a birthday dance. They are wild, unexpected incidents that don’t follow the rules of the rest of the Gospel. The Epiphany is one of those. It’s an exotic adventure story that feels almost incidental to the main event. But it is crucially important not only for its meaning in salvation history, but for what it means for our own life. Think of what the Magi did for each of the characters of the Nativity story, and for us. Herod takes Jesus as seriously as anyone else in the Gospel. He not only believes in Christ’s identity, he believes in his power — but sees it only as a ...

Epiphany evokes adoration and obedience. This is true whether we adore Christ with the Magi, enter into the Baptism of the Lord with John the Baptist, or obey the Lord with those servants who listened to the “Woman” who dared to approach the Lord. Each epiphany is a manifestation of glory, the unveiling of God’s beautiful plan for humanity. Those who through obedience to His Word welcome this manifestation of love invite new astonished wonder into their lives – a mystery too great for this world to contain. Mysteriously, such greatness requires such humility. The only way to welcome the Word made flesh in all His glory, the only way to become obedient to this Word in a way that brings light to the world, is through the prayer of faith. I write this because some sugg...

[embedded content] This is his academic banquet — a six-course argument. If you want an enjoyable, but takeaway version, see https://youtu.be/8t0UDoKImBs

Ryan Grigson, when in Indianapolis, holds his youngest of his six children, Jonah. (Courtesy Cynthia Grigson) Former Indianapolis Colts’ GM Enjoying Ride to Playoffs With the Seattle Seahawks Ryan Grigson Learns from his dismissal in Indianapolis, and is open to new adventures. In early 2012, Ryan Grigson was hired as the Indianapolis Colts’ general manager. The former Purdue tight end and offensive tackle inherited a team that had gone 2-14 the previous season, but he was determined to turn things around. The results were immediate and dramatic, as the Colts went 11-5 in 2012 and made the playoffs. Grigson was named NFL Executive of the Year, and the Colts registered the same 11-5 record the next two seasons. However, things cooled down in 2015 and 2016, when the Colts posted identi...

The singers are at the pope’s side for all important papal celebrations. The Sistine Chapel Choir performs when the pope presides over the Christmas Eve mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, and they sang at the private Vatican mass to honor Pope Francis’s 80th birthday. And as the oldest choir in the world — evidence of their existence dates back to the seventh century — they’ve seen a few popes. The Sistine Chapel Choir performs inside the Sistine Chapel CBS News The bulk of the choir’s repertoire is sacred music composed by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Palestrina, who lived from 1525-1594, composed his music with the Sistine Chapel in mind, drawing inspiration from Michelangelo’s colorful frescos adorning the walls and ceiling. With masterpieces like The...

(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...

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...

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, ...

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 ...