Originally Published April 10, 2009
As I sat in the fourth row back of our Church gazing at the newly painted Corpus (Christ’s Body on the Crucifix) I was enamored by the beautiful detail of Christ’s body. The Corpus is an incredible masterpiece with the detail of the muscles being as remarkable as any world-class athlete on the front page of Sports Illustrated.
I have no clue if Christ was so physically fit as he is portrayed. I do believe however that he was perfection, the beautiful form of His body on …

Holy Thursday is my favorite of all days in the Church year. I love the whole Mass, the washing of the feet, the breaking of the bread, the beloved disciple resting his head on Jesus’ chest, the betrayal – I love the whole story, the whole mystery.
Every year I reflect on some different part of the Holy Thursday traditions, some years I’ve tried my hardest to “stay awake” with Christ while he agonizes in the garden, some years I reflect on whether or not I would deny him three times, …

Thorns, burdens, and a back ache
I was talking with a friend recently whom I pray for regularly. He too is involved in ministry and impacts a lot of people. Yet he is scourged by a physical burden that he has had for some time. Whenever he has asked me to pray for him I always pray for this physical pain to leave him so that he would not be distracted. In a recent conversation I realized that perhaps it was not God’s desire for this burden to leave him. Perhaps …

When things don’t go my way I often find myself saying to God – why does this have to happen to me? Or some other despairing remark of the same sort. We often wonder why, not because we truly want to know why God has allowed something or what lesson might be learned from the present circumstance, but more out as a complaint.
It is like when a child is denied a request by a parent and they ask, “Why?”  Parents are of course frustrated when they respond with a very …

“Rend your hearts, not your garments,
and return to the LORD, your God.
For gracious and merciful is he…” Joel 2:13
The number one question Catholic’s ask each other during the week of Ash Wednesday is most likely, “So what are you going to give up?” This of course is an unofficial statistic but I bet some research would back me up.
Often it seems that the problem with “what we give up” is that it is merely a matter of course. Something we do because we are supposed to – it’s tradition. To …

Here we stand at the opening of a door. (Rev. 3:20) It is Ash Wednesday, the day we begin our journey in the desert, that is if we choose to enter the door. All too often we stand at the door and merely look inside. Perhaps we step in for a moment and then step back again on the other side.
Christ beckons you and I to enter in, to join him in the desert, to allow him to transform us. We must take this journey if we are to fully …

1. Lent Reading List
Catholic evangelist/speaker, Thomas Smith, twitter handle @gen215 posted a request for suggestions from Catholic Tweeters to give their Lent Reading suggestions this week and made a great little video giving those suggestions along with some of his own. I actually really liked the list and copied it to keep as suggestions for throughout the year. Reading a book during Lent is a great spiritual practice and a great way to make Lent the spiritual time it is meant to be. You can check the video out here …

“We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures, we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son.” Venerable Pope John Paul II
We live in a world that measures our worth by success and failures. We live in a world of many false pretenses. We can never measure up to the expectations of these pretenses. We have these pretenses for what is success, what is happiness, what is a “good life”. They will forever fail to satisfy …

Recently I was overwhelmed by a feeling of sadness. All the difficulties of our life seemed to weigh heavily on me. Financial concerns, professional concerns, thoughts about my failures, etc. All morning I tried to do things to ignore it, but the more I did, the more overwhelmed I became. I try not to complain and not to focus on the negative. I didn’t want to talk about it with my wife because I didn’t want to bring her down. But she knew something was wrong and was growing frustrated …

Let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help. – Hebrews 4:16
Our first intention are for those affected by the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti.

We of course pray for those who lost their lives, “Saints of God receive their souls, receive their souls and present them to God.”
We also pray for those who are trapped or injured. We pray that as search efforts continue that anyone else who is still alive in the rubble will be found. We pray for the injured …