God Has a Face

 

AGAINST all arguments that God is a wrathful, cruel, tyrant; an unjust, distant and disinterested cosmic force; an unforgiving and harsh egoist… enters the God-man, Jesus Christ. He comes, not with a retinue of guards nor a legion of angels; not with power and might nor with a sword—but with the poverty and helplessness of a newborn infant.Continue reading

The Late Consecration

THE NOW WORD ON MASS READINGS
for December 23rd, 2017
Saturday of the Third Week of Advent

Liturgical texts here

Moscow at dawn…

 

Now more than ever it is crucial that you be “watchers of the dawn”, the lookouts who announce the light of dawn and the new springtime of the Gospel
of which the buds can already be seen.

—POPE JOHN PAUL II, 18th World Youth Day, April 13th, 2003;
vatican.va

 

FOR a couple of weeks, I have sensed that I should share with my readers a parable of sorts that has been unfolding recently in my family. I do so with my son’s permission. When we both read yesterday’s and today’s Mass readings, we knew it was time to share this story based on the following two passages:Continue reading

The Coming Effect of Grace

THE NOW WORD ON MASS READINGS
for December 20th, 2017
Thursday of the Third Week of Advent

Liturgical texts here

 

IN the remarkable approved revelations to Elizabeth Kindelmann, a Hungarian woman who was widowed at the age of thirty-two with six children, Our Lord reveals an aspect of the “Triumph of the Immaculate Heart” that is coming.Continue reading

Justin the Just

Justin Trudeau at Gay Pride Parade, Vancouver, 2016; Ben Nelms/Reuters

 

HISTORY shows that when men or women aspire to the leadership of a country, they almost always come with an ideology—and aspire to leave with a legacy. Few are just mere managers. Whether they are Vladimir Lenin, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, Donald Trump, Kim Yong-un, or Angela Merkel; whether they are on the left or the right, an atheist or a Christian, brutal or passive—they intend to leave their mark in the history books, for better or worse (always thinking it is “for the better”, of course). Ambition can be a blessing or a curse.Continue reading

Mother Calls

 

A month ago, for no particular reason, I felt a deep urgency to write a series of articles on Medjugorje to counter long-standing falsehoods, distortions, and outright lies (see Related Reading below). The response has been remarkable, including hostility and derision from “good Catholics” who continue to call anyone who follows Medjugorje deceived, naive, unstable, and my favourite: “apparition chasers.”Continue reading

The Testing – Part II

THE NOW WORD ON MASS READINGS
for December 7th, 2017
Thursday of the First Week of Advent
Memorial of St. Ambrose

Liturgical texts here

 

WITH the controversial events of this week that unfolded in Rome (see The Papacy is Not One Pope), the words have been lingering in my mind once again that all of this is a testing of the faithful. I wrote about this in October 2014 shortly after the tendentious Synod on the family (see The Testing). Most important in that writing is the part about Gideon….

I also wrote then as I do now: “what happened in Rome was not a test to see how loyal you are to the Pope, but how much faith you have in Jesus Christ who promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against His Church.” I also said, “if you think that there is confusion now, wait till you see what’s coming…”Continue reading

The Papacy is Not One Pope

The Chair of Peter, St. Peter’s, Rome; Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680)

 

OVER the weekend, Pope Francis added to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis (the record of the papacy’s official acts) a letter he sent to the Bishops of Buenos Aires last year, approving their guidelines for discerning Communion for the divorced and remarried based on their interpretation of the post-synodal document, Amoris Laetitia. But this has served to only further stir muddy waters over the question of whether or not Pope Francis is opening the door for Communion to Catholics who are in an objectively adulterous situation.Continue reading