Readers who see this photo and learn about its setting cannot help but be inspired by the message it conveys. On the surface it appears to be a classroom where an older instructor is teaching the solfege scale degrees to a young student. The reality…
Category: Advancing the Kingdom
Educatio Christiana Animae Perfectio
The University Crest of the second largest Catholic University in the United States bears this inscription. As its 15,000 plus student body will attest, the school exemplifies the phrase’s translation: A Christian education perfects the soul. What is the second largest Catholic University? No, it…
Infants in Christ
“But I, brothers, could not address you as ‘spiritual people’, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it.” St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians brings to mind…
Malta
For those with long memories references to the archipelago of Malta bring to mind The Maltese Falcon, that 1941 film noir classic starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor. As time goes by (apologies to Bogart and Casablanca) mention of Malta will elicit in our modern…
Antipodes
In spite of the realities of globe-shrinking travel and universal communication, our imaginations still enshroud places on the other side of the world with antipodal remoteness. Understandably, Christians in America, mindful of our Lord’s Great Commission, might wonder how the Good News could reach such…
Reaching Out
As colloquialisms go, “reaching out’ is relatively new. It has actually been awarded entry in Merriam Webster as a ‘verbal phrase’, the meaning of which is ‘to make an effort to do something for other people’. Catholics in the United States are fortunate. Several…
New Haven, 1882
It would be difficult to find a Catholic, or for that matter an American, who has not heard of the Knights of Columbus. It was founded as a fraternal society by Father Michael McGivney in New Haven, Connecticut in 1882. Its purpose was to bring…
Limited Freedom
“Free to choose but not free not to choose”. In his recently published book The Hell There Is Msgr. Charles Pope forcefully warns us against our insouciant (if not nonexistent) regard for what awaits us after our earthly sojourn. We are at liberty to choose…
Slope or Precipice?
“The falcon cannot hear the falconer, things fall apart. The centre cannot hold”. William Butler Yeats wrote these lines in 1919 in “The Second Coming”, his celebrated poem prompted by the ravages of the First World War. Now, a century later, persistent echoes of his…
Restless Discipleship
Cardinal Robert Prevost has been elevated to the Chair of Peter. He is an American, a one-time head of the Augustinian Order, and a missionary who spent twenty years ministering to the poor in Peru. Is it a surprise that he chose as his papal…