Category: Guest Post

To avoid being buried alive, fairy tale author, Hans Christian Andersen, kept a note by his bed that said: “I only seem to be dead.” – from National Geographic Kids publication: Weird But True. With the above in mind, I suggest, when we feel buried alive by a smirkingly insensitive, sexist, entrenched church hierarchy, we…
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The season of Lent can be a particularly trying time for those of us who are experiencing great sorrow. It can also be a trying time for those of us who are looking inward – and outward – to contemplate what sacrifices, what alms, what prayers we might make, give, offer up, to relieve the…
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Over two weeks ago, my beautiful daughter died, leaving a husband and three young sons. She also left this – which I send on to you: Why the Woods Family Are Still Catholic By Laura Woods It was the first funeral since my father died, a cousin removed from me by generation and distance, and…
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Living alone, I read during breakfast. During Lent and Advent, I read the PaxChristiUSA reflections. For Thursday this week, the scripture verse is “Tend to the Flock of God in our midst.” 1 Peter 5:2. Brayton Shanley of the Agape community writes about college student interns searching for deeper meaning as parents and schools stress occupational…
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Sometimes you cannot avoid the image of the Pieta, Mary with the body of her dead son in her arms. That deep, deep sorrow holds onto you as she held onto him. These days we are held in the grip of the tragedy in Parkland, and all those similar tragedies here and around the world.…
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“Winning the battle, losing the war” became the frame for this post at a performance to celebrate the Chinese New Year on Valentine’s Day/Ash Wednesday. Watching this talented family of immigrants perform their traditional music, I realized that the lunar New Year is called “Tet” in Vietnam. The Tet Offensive in 1968 was the turning…
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I am indebted to Simone Campbell for this week’s theme, courtesy of Marian Ronan. In The Georgetown Voice, the ever-revolutionary Campbell “then took audience questions, leading to a profession of her personal ‘heresy,’ her belief that women can and should be ordained. “’Ordination is an extension of baptism, and there are different kinds of baptism……
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I know everywhere we look there is something wearying. I’m not even going to mention any examples. You know what they are and where they are. In spring, summer, and fall, we can bury the discontent and weariness we feel in all the bursts of life and color and activity around us. In winter, we’re…
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What am I reading this week? Of course, the great novel by Leo Tolstoy. How do I relate it to the data collected about Catholic women that I wrote about two weeks ago? Marriage, Love, and Children, three topics I did not cover then. The 96-page study published by the Center for Applied Research in…
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For a while now, maybe a long, long while for all I know, we have been challenged to see God in feminine as well as masculine terms. We experimented with using “She” as a pronoun for God and then progressed to using gender neutral terms. At least, the “progressive progressers” did. I like to think…
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