Getting your bearings

Posted on April 18, 2015 by Friar Musings

Everyone is on a journey, but we are not always able to recognize it, to describe it, or to give it meaning. I can tell you from experience that you can transit the entire Pacific Ocean in a submarine and never experience motion or turbulence. It is more monastic enclosure than cruise liner. Be the journey marked by submarine, cruise liner, airplane, or other means, we all arrive at the same destination. But there are lots of things that can happen out in the broad expanse of the Pacific, just as things befall us in life. Just as things befall the disciples in today’s gospel. Continue reading →

The Divine Prom

Posted on April 11, 2015 by Friar Musings

Last week I wrote that if Lent was about making “room for God” – and that is a good start – then the Easter season and beyond should be about coming to realize that God is the entire room! “God should be not merely the reference point but the whole context out of which we operate. God is not merely the source of our existence, he is the substance of our existence, the very life we have, and without God we would be lifeless, even if we are alive. Put another way, if Jesus is not Lord of all, he is not Lord at all.” Continue reading →

God’s blessings

Posted on April 10, 2015 by Friar Musings

In today’s Gospel, we hear, “So Simon Peter went over and dragged the net ashore full of one hundred fifty-three large fish.” Scholars have speculated on all kinds of reasons for the number “153.” It is perhaps simply the number that was there, it might be the number of known fish species in the world (at that time), or perhaps the number of known nations. Who knows. Continue reading →

Catholicism and Baseball

Posted on April 6, 2015 by Friar Musings

My previous post was a serious article by veteran Vatican/Catholic reporter John L. Allen, Jr. of the Boston Globe/Crux.com. Here is a more light-hearted post from the same article:

On baseball and Catholicism –
John L. Allen, Jr. , Boston Globe and Cruxnow.com

Easter is my favorite holiday, not only because it recalls the central event in the Christian account of salvation history, meaning Christ rising from the dead, but also because it coincides with baseball’s Opening Day. Continue reading →

Busy Lives

Posted on April 4, 2015 by Friar Musings

May the grace and peace of the Risen Lord be with you. He is risen, Alleluia! Alleluia! I trust these words find you well, blessed, and part of the Easter people celebrating our awesome and loving God. As an Easter people we will not just celebrate one day – we are about to begin a whole season of Easter from now until Pentecost Sunday on May 24th. In that same period, your life begins to accelerate with a Parish Picnic (April 12th), Confirmation (April 26th), First Holy Communion (May 2nd), Mother’s Day, final exams, graduations, summer vacation and camp planning, getting ready for college, and a whole list of things around the home and office. Continue reading →

Father, forgive them…

Posted on April 3, 2015 by Friar Musings

“Father forgive them, they know not what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34) This is the first of the traditional “last seven words” of Jesus. Jesus has just endured the long night of scouring and is abandoned, mocked, and spat upon. He has been stripped of all human dignity and now hangs humiliated upon the cross: “so marred were his features, beyond that of mortals; his appearance, beyond that of human beings” (Isaiah 52:14). Yet his first of his last words are of forgiveness. Continue reading →

The Long Way Home

Posted on March 28, 2015 by Friar Musings

In a recent issue of America Magazine, William J. O’Malley wrote about “taking the long way home.” It was a wonderful “musing” on the classic movie, “The Wizard of Oz.” We are reminded about the archetypal scene when Dorothy’s house lands on the Wicked Witch and then Glinda, the good witch, shows up and magically transfers the ruby slippers to Dorothy. As the ending of the movie makes clear, all Dorothy had to do was to click her heel and proclaim, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.” Why didn’t Glinda tell Dorothy that at the very beginning? Of course, if Glinda did there would be no story, no journey – and the journey is the very point of the story. At the beginning of the story Dorothy is not ready to move into the next stage of her life until she has discovered that she already has the virtues her three companions on the journey seem to lack: courage, intelligence, and love. The journey becomes the venue to reveal to herself that she is ready for what lays ahead. It is only possible because she took the long way home. Continue reading →

The Annunciation

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Friar Musings

At first blush it does seem odd that the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord falls in the midst of Lent. It is an event in the life of Christ that we associate with Advent. That scene in which the Angel Gabriele comes to Mary to announce she will be the mother of Emmanuel, “God with us.”

My friend, Fr. Bill McConville OFM, notes that part of the church’s art tradition is that the scene of the Annunciation often portrays Mary, not empty-handed, but holding a book or a scroll, her reading and reflecting on Scripture being interrupted by the angel’s pronouncement. The tradition is that she is meditating on Isaiah 7 (today’s first reading) in which there is the promise that a virgin will bear a child. Continue reading →

How Will You Belong? The Stranger at Our Doors

Posted on March 21, 2015 by Friar Musings

Last week in this column I mused about the connections of being a welcoming community and hospitality. As part of that musing, I wondered about the distinction between entertaining and hospitality, surmising that it perhaps depends on your role model and the source of your ideas about hospitality. If the model is from Martha Stewart, Rachael Ray, and Southern Living Magazine – then perhaps “entertaining” is a better description. As a church of believing Christians, it would be best to look to Jesus for models of hospitality. Continue reading →

How Will You Belong? Hospitality

Posted on March 14, 2015 by Friar Musings

I most often hear our parish described as a “welcoming community – you all are so hospitable.” Certainly that is a good thing, but it does get me musing about things. Do we all mean the same thing when we speak about hospitality? “Hospitality” for several of our parishioners is a specialty branch of civil law. Hospitality law covers topics such as the impact of federal and state civil rights laws on the hospitality industry, contract law, including discussions of remedies for overbooking and a guest’s breach of the contract regarding a reservation, negligence, risk management, innkeeper rights, guest rights, and employment practices – and that is just dipping a big toe in the waters of hospitality law. Continue reading →

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the musings of a Franciscan friar…

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