Waiting for the Light

This week I’ve been thinking about blissful ignorance — the kind of willful blindness we sometimes embrace in our humanness because seeing the truth is just too painful, or unexpected, or unsettling, or, well, icky.
Among believers, it can become a kind of spiritual schitzophrenia. The kind that sees with blazing clarity the splinter in the eye [...]

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Weekend Ponderings: Happy Feast Day, Mother Teresa!

Today we celebrate the life and homecoming of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, one of the world’s most famous “mothers.” A wonderful reflection of her life can be found at Catholic Fire.
You can read my series on Blessed Mother Teresa as the perfect patroness of foster and adoptive mothers, based on the book “Come Be [...]

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Weekend Ponderings: Uncertainties and Surprises

At midnight, there was a cry,
‘Behold, the bridegroom!  Come out to meet him!’
Then all those virgins got up and trimmed their lamps.
The foolish ones said to the wise,
‘Give us some of your oil,
for our lamps are going out.’
But the wise ones replied,
‘No, for there may not be enough for us and you.
Go instead to the [...]

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Weekend Ponderings: Going Up! (Happy Feast of the Assumption!)

Although I haven’t posted to this blog in a while, in honor of the Feast of the Assumption I’ve posted a brief reflection over at “Behold Your Mother” about what the Assumption of Mary says about the destiny of all believers.
Death hurts. It strikes us as vaguely unjust, no matter when it comes. There’s a [...]

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Weekend Ponderings: Life (and death) of young, vibrant Catholic girl inspires many to come back to the Church

Gloria Strauss was just 13 when she died of cancer. This young, vibrant Catholic has inspired many to come back to the Church.
This story touched me because of how her cancer was discovered, very much the same way — and at the same age — my sister’s bone cancer was found. In Chris’ case, a [...]

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Weekend Ponderings: “Forget the extra shirt.”

In the Gospel reading this weekend, Jesus sends out His disciples two by two to preach the good news. His instructions in Mark 6 are very explicit …
He instructed them to take nothing for the journey
but a walking stick—
no food, no sack, no money in their belts.
They were, however, to wear sandals
but not a second [...]

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Weekend Ponderings: Paul’s Thorn … and Mine

This is a little late getting to the blog — I should be posting “Miracle Monday” about now.  Please bear with me.
Today I was listening to our parochial vicar, Father Gordon (who will be leaving us in a week or two), talk about St. Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” and I was reminded what a [...]

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