What’s the best way we can remedy all this close-mindedness in our relationships with the Lord, our Blessed Mother, the Church and with our brothers and sisters in the world today? I would submit that we could begin with being open to all the richness and beauty that surround us in the world and the Church, in our spiritual lives and active lives. The world is a beautiful place, filled with the goodness of God shining forth in the faces around us.

Do we believe that Jesus wants to heal us? We should because He does! Do we believe that Jesus loves us enough to help us? We should because He does! Do we believe that we are worthy to be helped by Jesus? We should because He does!

This weekend, we interrupt Ordinary Time to celebrate the Solemnity of the birth of St. John the Baptist. I must admit that as I looked toward this Sunday I thought, “Solemnity”? “St. John the Baptist”?

We begin and end this Sunday’s readings with “family.” We listen at the start to how God’s dream for that family has become, at best, compromised, and at worst, possibly rejected.

In the face of a mystery as incomprehensible and confounding as the unity of the three divine Persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – the believer is reduced to silence: adoring, deferential and spellbound silence.

When I was a child, my mother would bring me to charismatic prayer meetings in the neighborhood. We went to Mass every Sunday, and even weekdays in the summer, but these were very different. It was my first experience praying in this way – or any way – outside of home, Church, and my parish school.

THERE IS A figure, a person who saturates the Scriptures that we read during the Easter season. While she permeates every word, and embodies the grace therein, she is silent and mostly invisible.

IT IS HARD to believe that I began freshman year at Cathedral College over 45 years ago. Cathedral College is the forerunner of today’s Cathedral Seminary Residence at the Immaculate Conception Center in Douglaston.