Yesterday's first reading at Mass was the exciting story of David and Goliath. It follows the classic plotline of the heroic little guy who defeats the baddie with his secret weapon. The plotline of the "secret Son" is something I outlined in my book Immortal Combat--it is the plotline that teaches over and over again through all [...]
There is a difference of opinion about the posture of the priest during the celebration of Mass. Should he face the people or face in the same direction of the people? Fr. Bus. a priest in the Archdiocese of Chicago thinks it best to celebrate Mass praying in the same direction as the people or to [...]
One of the things non-Catholics find most objectionable or scandalous about the Catholic faith is the use of relics. "Why do you kiss the bones of dead people? Isn't that kind of creepy?" The doubter asks. What they don't understand is the physicality of the Catholic faith. This is a religion of blood and guts, grit [...]
My book The Mystery of the Magi was published a few years ago, and in it I made two astounding claims: First, that the Magi really did exist. The story is not a fairytale invented by the early church. Second, that the Magi came from the neighboring kingdom of Nabatea--that is the trading nation that occupied present [...]
Conservatives like to bemoan the "liberals" but I like to bemoan the "literals". These are the Christians who insist on taking every aspect and word of the Bible literally. There are two kinds of "literals"--both conservatives and liberals, and both have their roots in the Protestant doctrine of sola Scriptura. Sola Scriptura is that man-made, late invented doctrine [...]
From the Office of Readings - a sermon by Pope St Leo the Great Dearly beloved, today our Saviour is born; let us rejoice. Sadness should have no place on the birthday of life. The fear of death has been swallowed up; life brings us joy with the promise of eternal happiness. No one is shut [...]
Last Sunday at our parish Mass, it being the first Sunday of Advent, I preached about death. I explained that there were essentially three ways to die: suddenly and without warning, slowly through a long, humiliating and painful illness and happily with a short illness, time to prepare and with family there to say good bye. [...]
This week I have been on retreat at Belmont Abbey and had the privilege of going to lunch with the editors at TAN Books which is located just a few minutes from the Abbey. The Abbey--by the way--is in the midst of what future church historians will name "the Southern Catholic Renaissance" or something like that [...]
On this day fifty eight years ago John F Kennedy was assassinated and in Oxford, England C.S.Lewis died. Lewis had a great impact on my life--in many ways saving my Christian faith. I had been brought up in fundamentalist Protestantism and, after high school, went to Bob Jones University. The education I received at BJU was [...]
The illustration for this post shows the range of light waves and the tiny proportion of which is visible. A similar chart for sound waves shows the tiny range of waves which are audible to the human ear. There is much more "out there" than we can perceive with our physical senses. The aptly named Angelico [...]