It would be a safe bet that readers of this column, regardless of their “positions” on religion, will agree that the advance of our Lord’s Kingdom in some way depends on our interaction with the world’s poor.( Poverty here refers, of course, not just to…
Category: Advancing the Kingdom
The Ignatian Volunteer Corps – Experience, Service, Reflection
The Ignatian Volunteer Corps (IVC) was founded early in 1995 when Jesuit Fathers Jim Conroy and the late Charlie Costello gathered a small group of retired women and men to consider ways to minister to persons who are materially poor and, at the same time,…
Pax Romana
… to the full extent of its strength and competence Given globalization and the world’s instantaneous communication capabilities anyone interested in the cultivation of the faith might understandably wonder why two millennia after Christianity’s founding this “universal” religion isn’t universally embraced.
Steerage on Peter’s Barque
Since its founding, Christianity has employed imagery to capture the reality of the Church. Consider St. Paul’s reference to the Body of Christ, or subsequent references to the Bride of Christ, the Lord’s flock, or the People of God. One particularly poetic image which can…
This could be my daughter
Daniel Torchia, the communications director at the Toronto based Salt + Light Television Network – www.saltandlighttv.org (see Advancing the Kingdom article dated 2/29/10 entitled ‘With Salt and Light’) brings to our attention a documentary S + L is preparing for release this fall about Bethlehem…
The Power of Beauty
A few years ago a childhood Catholic friend who had abandoned religion soon after college when he moved overseas returned to the States to attend his mother’s funeral.
Build Jake's Place
In the New Testament, Jesus teaches us that we should have a welcoming attitude towards children because “the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Mt. 19:14). And, the life of Jesus, as recounted in the Gospel stories, also teaches us that good can…
Time
Rome is, of course, known as the Eternal City, the city without time. Church historians observe that the Vatican deliberates in a “time-agnostic” way, that is in a manner so independent of concern for time that it thinks in terms not of years but of…
Hope
An intriguing question would be: how instrumental is the virtue of hope in the advance of the Lord’s Kingdom?
"To retreat is to advance"
As counter-intuitive as it seems, at times the success of an advance may depend on the success of a retreat. The “Men of Malvern” have been demonstrating this now for 100 years.