The Word is Life

On the Road to the Kingdom

Here is a link to today’s readings. Recently, a list of the worst cities for safe driving in the U.S. was published by a prominent insurance company that compared crash frequency rates among 200 cities. Being from Massachusetts, I was amused...

Passing the Torch

Here is a link to today’s readings. In his excellent textbook, Path Through Catholicism, Jesuit father Mark Link retells the story of the Italian composer Puccini concerning his final work, Turandot. “While writing it,” says Link, “he was stricken with cancer....

Always Our Children

Here is a link to today’s readings. On Father’s Day we remember St. Paul’s words: “I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named” (Ephesians 3:14-15, NABRE). For many of us, the title fits...

Only Love Can Save Us

The Pharisees are often portrayed as self-righteous and judgmental in the New Testament. It’s a broad brush that certainly doesn’t apply to all the Pharisees of the time and especially not to the Jews then or now more generally. Nonetheless,...

Hope

What a joy it was to meet my new nephew, Luke! I always feel younger than my age because of my work with children and young people and the contact I have with my own nephews and nieces. Children bring...

Cop Killers and Christian Discipleship

Last Sunday morning, I woke up to the news that in Auburn, Mass. a police officer had been shot 5 times and killed during a traffic stop. Officer Ronald Tarentino, Jr. was 42, and had a wife and three children....

No Cesspool Required

Last week, I sat for my comprehensive exams (“comps”), a weeklong marathon of writing that spans the seven strands of knowledge which form the foundation of my doctoral program in theology and education at Boston College’s School of Theology and...

Mothers and Martyrs

Today is Mother’s Day, and perhaps I should write a sweet tribute. I would be careful to remember that stories about mothers are more complicated than the Hallmark cards admit. There are absent mothers and alcoholic mothers and abusive mothers....

Take a Stand or Compromise? Heaven Help Us!

Watching Congress this last number of years has been like watching a streaming movie when you don’t have enough bandwidth. Just when you think it’s working and you’ll enjoy the show, everything comes to a halt. After some fits and...

They Will Know You Are My Disciples

[caption id="attachment_17182" align="alignleft" width="300"] Christ's Farewell to his Apostles © The Yorck Project[/caption] In Japan and Ecuador this past week, terrible earthquakes took hundreds of lives and left many others injured, emotionally distraught, and faced with the burden of having to...