Here is my latest article for Aleteia which encourages us to get spiritually fit in the new year. After the holiday feasting I’m ready to sign up at the gym. Crammed with Christmas cake and candy, and stuffed like the turkey, I am, like my waistband, overflowing with good intentions and new year resolve. I’d join [...]
My latest blog post for National Catholic Register looks at the pains that are necessary for real and lasting change to take place. Many of us are trapped in a cycle of lust and shame. We’re trapped in a downward spiral of a dead end job, a loveless marriage or an inner dynamic of rage, bitterness, [...]
My article this week at The Imaginative Conservative website explicates the hidden meaning of the Indiana Jones films.... ....or does it? Is it possible that the popular Indiana Jones trilogy is a cleverly structured, well thought-out, theologically astute analogy of the Christian spiritual quest? I do not suggest that it is an allegory, and I realize [...]
My article on Mary Mother of God and New Year's Day is here at the National Catholic Register Did you know that, for centuries, Christians celebrated the new year on March 25 — not Jan. 1? March 25 is the feast of the Annunciation, and the new year was celebrated on that day because the Annunciation [...]
I am not really what they call a party animal and have never understood the human need to celebrate a calendar date. The turn of the New Year, however, does cause me to pause. I want to give the New Year one of those squinty eyed, cheroot chomping, Clint Eastwood type silent stare downs. I want [...]
Fr Longenecker and his family I don't often mention my wife and family on this blog because the blog is public and I have a private side. However, people do often ask what it is like being married to a priest. I think I can answer for Mrs Longenecker and my family. These are [...]
One of the things that troubles me as a pastor and as a man trying to be a disciple of Jesus Christ is the hypocrisy and heresy in the Catholic Church. I should be more precise. What troubles me are the heretics and hypocrites in the Catholic Church. A heretic is someone whose Catholic belief is [...]
Celebrating Mass in St Peter's I was brought up in a Protestant fundamentalist home. We saw all the different denominations, but we considered them all to be man made institutions. None of them were God-given, so you just chose the one that was best for you. It is commonplace within Protestant circles to believe [...]
Shrine to St Thomas a Becket, Canterbury Cathedral Last summer during our pilgrimage to England we visited Canterbury. Saying Mass in the crypt of the cathedral was an amazing experience, then spending time in prayer at the site of the martyrdom of St Thomas a Becket (memorial today) was very moving. What made the [...]
Knight by Victor Vasnetsov I have to admit that the Infant of Prague was one of those Catholic devotions that was not immediately accessible to me as a convert. "Help me out here. What's with Jesus dressed up as a baby doll?" But some time ago I had an experience that made me realize [...]