Holiness is not something to which I think I am called. Holier than thou is something I might be accused of. But in hearing on the news about Pope Francis’ new document, Gaudete et exsultate, I felt pretty good. I try to follow the Great Commandment and I resist over-intellectualizing things, as you can figure…
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Okay, I’m a grandma, so please bear with me! I think this grandchild-being-irresistably-funny anecdote does have a point for us. No, trust me, really. My two year old grandson was being potty trained and doing quite well, thank you. One day, he and his family were at a restaurant. Mom denied him some treat and…
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Do you know what I did yesterday instead of writing this blog? I went to the Philadelphia parade for the Villanova basketball team, who had just won the NCAA men’s championship. Even if you don’t follow college athletics, you probably saw pictures of Sister Jean, Loyola of Chicago’s chaplain. The Catholic factor was prominent in…
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With all respect to Neil Diamond, not to mention God, what magnificent words! Easter words. In the Old Testament, it is God, in defining God’s self, who says, “I AM” or I AM THAT I AM. How did those words, along with so many others in our scriptural readings, become twisted into statements of ultimate,…
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I used to discount the stories of the saints in my Roman Catholic upbringing, but a couple of times this week I am reminded that they are not only our inheritance. New Yorker writer Rebecca Mead pulled out an image this week to write about the March for Our Lives.The silent, head-shaven Emma Gonzalez reminded…
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I’ve been struggling with trying to be inspiring. I so believe in the power and, yes, even glory of the Holy Thursday Witnesses we in Philadelphia, and perhaps you elsewhere have been doing, and I’ve been searching and searching for something to inspire more people – like you – like you with your friends –…
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I was not going to write about this article by Ross Douthat, published on the front page of Sunday’s New York Times “Currents” section.  But half the page is such a beautiful photo I cannot resist. Pope Francis is facing the Holy Door of St. Peter’s, his hands on two bronze panels with Latin inscriptions.…
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It’s a bit difficult to see our faces in this photo of our 2015 annual Holy Thursday witness at the Cathedral of Saints Peter & Paul in Philadelphia, but really, how menacing could we possibly look? And yet, two years in a row, people, in protest to our presence, often in our faces, have held…
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I’m hearing voices! “Abraham, Abraham,” calls God’s angel, and then again, “Abraham, Abraham!” Then in our Gospel, Peter, James, and John think they see God when they actually see Elijah and Moses. But really they are only in God’s presence when they hear God’s voice. These passages made me think about voices. You know that…
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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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