I am going through some ‘stuff’ right now; some personal issues as well as the usual anxieties about world and national events. The latter are bothersome, but I’ve gotten to realize that there’s not much I can do about them apart from prayer. The personal stuff is very worrying and those worries intrude on my …
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Someday you will die. Me, too. No one is exempt. It will happen, guaranteed. If you have been recently exposed to death because a loved one has passed away, the possibility was brought to your attention. Most everyone is uncomfortable with it and will routinely brush it off. An article from long ago asks us …
The First Reading for the Mass for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) is from 1st Book of Kings Chapter 19, verses 4-8; Elijah went a day’s journey into the desert,until he came to a broom tree and sat beneath it. He prayed for death saying:“This is enough, O LORD! Take my life, for I am …
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I first learned about Markie Works in the introduction to the Mother Angelica book that Raymond Arroyo edited entitled “Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality.” I’m retelling from memory but Markie was in despair in a hotel room in Chicago in the early 1990s when she chanced upon the “Mother Angelica Live” show …
Today is Holy Saturday and I hope that your Lent has been a fine and fruitful one. I didn’t blog except for a few times (I was ‘around’ but taken up with things.) The seasons come and they go; we as Catholics learn to live with the Liturgical Year as it helps us with the …
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If you have been reading this blog for the past several years and retain a good memory for certain oddities, then you would know that I hold an obsession regarding the film “The Way.” It is a film directed by Emilio Estevez and starred his father, Martin Sheen. It is about a man (Sheen) who’s son …
Today is the feast day of St. Felix of Valois on the liturgical calendar for the Extraordinary Form of the Holy Mass. St. Felix was a hermit and a co-founder (with Saint John of Matha) of the Order of the Holy Trinity for the Redemption of Captives (a/k/a “The Trinitarians”). The Trinitarians were devoted to …
There seems to be numerous novenas at this time of year. That is possibly just my imagination, but nevertheless today begins another novena. This one is to Our Lady of Fatima for the commemoration of the Miracle of the Sun Apparition on October 13, 1917. I know that the typical Fatima novena celebrates the first …
Today is the Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels. There is a tremendous comfort in knowing that we are never truly alone, for as the Collect from today’s Mass in the Extraordinary Form says in regards to these: “O God, Who in Your wondrous providence graciously send Your Angels to watch over us, grant that …
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NOTE: Reblogged from last year, which itself was a reblog from the previous year and edited with some additions.) Coming up on August 15th is the Solemnity of the Assumption of Our Lady. It is also the beginning of a Franciscan devotion known as “St. Michael’s Lent.” It is a 40-day period of fasting begun by …