Archives for 2015

Maritain on Just About Everything

“God is an All-powerful Cause because He gives to all things their being and their very nature and acts in them, more intimate to them than they are to themselves, in the way that is proper to their essential being; thus assuring from w … [Read more...]

“Do-it-Yourself” or Vocation: Coincidence or Providence

"Window dressing” or the Complementarity of the Sacraments of Marriage and the Eucharist?

Is marriage independent of sexual identity, an optional role or an unjust institution; or, alternatively, is there a deeper answer to the question of a man marrying a woman? We live in a time, then, when the foundations of marriage in the … [Read more...]

Halloween: Neither A Trick Nor A Treat

Old and New Experiences There are certain joyful events in our life which are deeply embedded in our memory. Some of those events are associated with particular celebrations or holidays. One such holiday is Halloween which has become part … [Read more...]

Questions Answered

Question: A local priest has, on more than one occasion, preached that Jesus “became a human being.” Is that the same thing as he “became man?” Are the two terms interchangeable? Answer: This question takes up the famous issue of what the … [Read more...]

Fall Reading for October 2015

Rebuilding Your Message: Practical Tools to Strengthen Your Preaching and Teaching. Michael White and Tom Corcoran. (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, Rebuilt Parish Book, 2015) 224 pages; $15.00. (Reviewed by Jon M. Ericson) Family and … [Read more...]

Homilies for October 2015

Empowered to love 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, October 4, 2015 Purpose: God calls us to proclaim the Gospel of Marriage in ways that extend the love God to everyone. Readings: Genesis 2:18-24; Psalm 128:1-2,3,4-5,6; … [Read more...]

God’s Providence

God’s Providence is a topic that gives us a fresh perspective on evil, and a correction on what many people attribute to God's will. The basic mistake in the latter is to think that everything that happens, happens according to God's will, t … [Read more...]

Catholic Higher Education: Ministry of the Head and Heart

Nelson Mandela, the world renowned South African who led the fight to end apartheid in his nation, once stated, “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” But what manner of education do we seek for our stu … [Read more...]

Twelve Lessons about the Financial Future of Catholic Schools

I have spoken with several bishops recently about the Catholic schools in their dioceses. The conversations brought home to me that what I recently heard from these bishops are the same questions, and the same challenges, that I have been … [Read more...]

Economic Injustice Hidden in Plain Sight

The Church and Usury

In the modern mind, the Church’s prohibition on usury falls under her many outdated teachings. Some even use it as proof that the Church can change her teachings. What the Church taught half a millennium ago, before the rise of modern c … [Read more...]

The Family as the Cultural Revolution

A week before his pastoral visit to Cuba and the United States, and his visit to the White House, Pope Francis spoke of a civilizational shift that is occurring in our times—a pivotal moment in which the mission of Christian families will p … [Read more...]

Questions Answered

Question: At the Easter Vigil, it is sometimes the practice that protestants are received into full ecclesiastical communion, and then receive Communion. Now, neophytes are baptized at the Vigil, with all their sins forgiven, but converts … [Read more...]

The Family: Expanded Sacrament

It has become a trite truism to say that the traditional family is under attack. The sources of the onslaught may be traced back at least to the 19th century’s exaltation of Romantic infatuation and its accompanying insistence that the s … [Read more...]

Conscience, Freedom, and the “Law of Graduality” at the Synod on the Family

Ideas have consequences—we well know. My concern here is a series of problematic and closely related conceptions of conscience, human freedom, the moral qualification of human acts, and progress in moral living that might be operative in t … [Read more...]

God’s Beauty Evokes Our Joy

God’s manifestation of his beauty/glory is both a grace, expressing his self-giving generosity, and a call to his joy. Beauty, a relational aspect of created or uncreated excellence, is always the self-manifestation or communication of e … [Read more...]