As a Bible Christian I memorized a verse from the New Testament: "God has not given us the Spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." The older I get and the longer I work with people the more I have come to understand how fear is at the root [...]
May Magnificat by G.M.Hopkins MAY is Mary’s month, and I Muse at that and wonder why: Her feasts follow reason, Dated due to season— Candlemas, Lady Day; But the Lady Month, May, Why fasten that upon her, With a feasting in her honour? Is it only its being brighter Than the most are must delight her? [...]
Recently I have been increasingly drawn to the Divine Mercy devotion. At the Catholic leadership conference in Philadelphia I met Fr Michael Gaitley--who is the director of the Divine Mercy shrine in Massachusetts and listened to his powerful talk on the Divine Mercy. I have begun praying the Divine Mercy chaplet every day, and have experienced [...]
It is often said that the longest journey is from the head to the heart. In other words, we can sometimes understand something intellectually, but until it gets into the heart--the seat of emotion and the seat of our will--it will only ever be a good idea. This is what happened to me with the dogma [...]
Today we celebrate St Athanasius, and can somebody beam him down? The place is crawling with Arians again. The simple version is that Arius--a Bishop of Alexandria--taught that Jesus Christ was not fully divine. Nearly the whole church followed this new teaching. It made sense, after all for lots of reasons it was a bit of [...]
Do Catholics pray to Mary? It sure looks that way! But there is more to it than that. An increasing number of Protestants are ready to be more open minded about this controversial topic. "I'm ready to honor Mary more than we usually do" said a Protestant friend, "but I'm not going to pray to her." [...]
Is there a contradiction in the gospels? In John 6 Jesus is asked the question, "What must we do to accomplish the works of God?" Jesus answers, "Believe on the one whom he sent." But in Matthew's gospel in the parable of the sheep and goats, Jesus says we will be judged according to our works--"Inasmuch [...]
Now that the geeks at Patheos have give us such a snazzy new re-fit, I am going through and moving a good number of my archived articles from my website to my blog. I hope readers will explore the 'Archived Articles' tab to see what's there. I'll be updating it regularly with old articles and with [...]
I am constantly updating my 'Archived Articles' section of this blog. Over the years I've written hundreds of articles on lots of topics. I'll make most of them available here free of charge. Some longer articles will require a small payment for the digital download. Just go to the 'Archived Articles' tab in the header. Each [...]
In the summer of 1987 I was living in England and had three months free between jobs so I decided to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem--hitch-hiking and staying at monasteries across Europe. One of the place I wanted to visit was the monastery of St Gildard in Nevers, France. This is where the incorrupt body [...]