Ross Douthat, NY Times columnist and a committed Catholic, writes some interesting op-ed pieces – but are often religious essays about faith’s intersection with life lived in an ever secularizing world. In his Sunday essay, he writes:
The resilience of religious theories is matched by the resilience of religious experience. The disenchantment of the modern world is a myth of the intelligentsia: In reality it never happened. Instead, through the whole multicentury process of secularization, the decline of religion’s political power and cultural prestige, people kept right on having near-death experiences and demonic visitations and wild divine encounters. They just lost the religious structures through which those experiences used to be interpreted.
It is a long read, but completely worth your investment of time and thought.
In the well known parable of 
In today’s 
Today’s 
There are a couple of “feeds” that come across my computer, email, mobile, etc. Some are more interesting than others. Some I read “religiously” others I will take a peek if the title is interesting. Some are topically interesting all by themselves. It is an eclectic sets of “feeds.” One came across this morning that my niece Julie would be interested in. She graduated from Georgia Tech in urban planning and did Master’s level work at UNC Chapel Hill. She has continued her career and works out west in urban traffic planning. So, because it is off interest to my niece and my own lifetime experience of interstates/freeways/etc., when “
The Assumption was defined as dogma only in the 1950. In our Catholic Church ‘dogma” is defined as a truth revealed by God, which the magisterium of the Church declared as binding upon all Catholics. The term Dogma Catholicum was first used by Vincent of Lérins (450), referring to “what all, everywhere and always believed” – with the emphasis on katholica meaning universal. The term dogma derived from the Greek dogma (δόγμα) meaning literally “that which one thinks is true” and the verb dokein, “to seem good.” 
Each Sunday at Mass, we profess our faith. We proclaim what we believe via the Creed. A creed is a brief statement of faith used to list important truths, to clarify doctrinal points and to distinguish truth from error. The word creed comes from the Latin word credo, meaning, “I believe.” The Bible contains a number of creed-like passages. The Jews still recite a creed known as the Shema that comes from
Christmas 2019. I think most pastors and their vicars, if asked, would remember back to the days when attendance at church overflowed the pews, into the aisles, and perhaps out the door. We Catholics, a largely silent and patient bunch, are given to sitting quietly awaiting the start of liturgy. Long ago silent reverence for “God’s house” was drilled into our consciousness and obedience. We would fidget, bu quietly. Remember the expression, “as quiet as a church mouse? They were the noise makers. But even we had our own special stirrings and sounds of life – especially on the solemnities and feast days.
friarmusings 