What’s next in your Lenten journey?

Posted on March 3, 2022 by Friar Musings

Ash Wednesday has come and gone. I hope you were able to celebrate. Lent has begun and you’ve “40 days” in the journey. So…what’s next? Take some time today and make a plan (if you have not already). Don’t let this time quickly recede in the Lenten “rear view mirror.” If you blink again, it will be Holy Week and the “best of intentions” will have to wait for another year. So… what is your plan for Lent? And I ask about “your plan” because each of us are called to be intentional in our life of prayer and to create a place and space in our life to be in relationship with God. This is especially true in the Season of Lent. Now that Ash Wednesday has passed, what is your Lenten plan to make room in your life to be filled with God’s grace? How about a Lenten checklist to help you get started? Continue reading →

All in the name

Posted on March 2, 2022 by Friar Musings

In Italian, Lent is quaresima or forty (days). In German, it is Fastenzeit or time for bodily restraint. Our English word comes from an older Anglo-Saxon word for spring—len(c)ten—whence our Lent. Italian tells us how long it will last (with its symbolic overtones). German tells us what to do in that time. But English tells us what is supposed to happen, that is, we are supposed to experience a springtime of faith, a time of growth and new life.

More precious than gold

Posted on March 1, 2022 by Friar Musings

Just last Friday, the first reading was from the Letter of James, in which he admonished the faithful to endure: “Indeed we call blessed those who have persevered” (James 5:11). In yesterday’s first reading we listened to the opening passage from the First Letter of Peter: “although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials” (1 Peter 1:6). And today we hear the letter’s continuation. Continue reading →

Ash Wednesday and Sundays in Lent 2022

Posted on February 27, 2022 by Friar Musings

Ash Wednesday, the first day of the penitential season of Lent in the Catholic Church, is always 46 days before Easter Sunday. It is a “movable” feast that is assigned a date in the calendar only after the date of Easter Sunday is calculated. How is it calculated? I’m glad you asked.

According to the norms established by the Council of Nicaea (325 AD) and later adopted for Western Christianity at the Synod of Whitby, Easter Sunday falls each year on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox. This year the vernal equinox falls on Sunday, March 20, 2021 and the first full moon after that occurs on Saturday, April 16th. Therefore, Easter Sunday is celebrated this year on April 17th. If you want to know the date of Ash Wednesday, just count backwards 46 days and you get March 2nd. Continue reading →

Confessing your sins

Posted on February 26, 2022 by Friar Musings

When another Christian sister or brother asks me, as a priest, about the Sacrament of Confession, I think a more interesting and possibly helpful question is whether they confess their sins to another believer in their congregation. I think the response is about 99% “No, I confess my sins to God in prayer.” By the way, I think that is very commendable and laudatory practice, one the Catechism of the Catholic Church notes and recommends in para. 1434 and following. I ask them what they think of James 5:16 from today’s reading. Mostly they are not aware of the verse. It says: “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful.” Continue reading →

Are we there yet?

Posted on February 25, 2022 by Friar Musings

The familiar complaint and plea from the backseat of a long road trip – or what seems long to the one voicing the inquiry. And the longer the destination looms in an unclear and uncertain future, the more mischief blossoms in the back seat. “He’s touching me” / “she on my side, make her move over / “they won’t let me sit by the window.” It is not the jealousy, envy, malicious slander, and defamation that James has been admonishing the community about, but it bubbles up from the same source. Continue reading →

Living into the unknown

Posted on February 23, 2022 by Friar Musings

Today’s first reading continues to work its way through the Letter of James.

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we shall go into such and such a town, spend a year there doing business, and make a profit”— 14 you have no idea what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears. 15 Instead you should say, “If the Lord wills it, we shall live to do this or that.” 16 But now you are boasting in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So for one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, it is a sin. (James 4:13-17)

Continue reading →

Leadership

Posted on February 22, 2022 by Friar Musings

The gospel for today is often a central part of any discussion about the role of Peter as appointed leader of the early church leading into the successors of Peter as the Pope of the modern Catholic Church. A modern evangelical scholar, nominally part of a religious perspective that would deny any particular role assigned to Peter, offers that his peers have to twist Scripture out of shape to reach that conclusion. Their arguments are molded to fit their predetermined end. This scholar holds that clearly Peter was assigned leadership. However, he would argue that there is nothing in these verses to point beyond Peter’s leadership of that group of Apostles. He argues that Catholic apologists argue to their own predetermined ends. Continue reading →

Next-level and the Red Pill

Posted on February 21, 2022 by Friar Musings

In normal times and seasons, air travel is a routine thing – at least in my time. My dad was born in 1912. That year, a trip between Tampa and St. Petersburg, two cities sitting on opposite sides of Tampa Bay, took two hours by steamship, at least 4 hours by rail. Traveling by automobile around the bay took as much as 20 hours. On Jan. 1, 1914, the world’s first scheduled passenger airline service took off, operating between St. Petersburg and Tampa in a Thomas Benoist-designed flying boat. The 21-mile flight took 23 minutes. The St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line was a short-lived endeavor — only four months — but it was a profound technological shift in the way we lived and perceived our present and future. Some refer to such things as “shock level” events – events that impress, frighten, and make us wonder about tomorrow in new ways. Continue reading →

Wisdom and Understanding