by Msgr. Joseph Calise SEVEN YEARS AGO this week, I was having a once in a lifetime experience. I had just begun walking the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage walk across the Pyrenees Mountains in the footsteps of St. James. Although the walk can have several different starting points, the ultimate goal is the Cathedral of St. […]
Sunday Scriptures
Christ Sets the World on Fire
by Msgr. Joseph Calise EVERY ONCE IN a while, we meet someone challengingly inspiring. I do not mean someone who necessarily has a high office or who is well known – although people like Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day and Pope Francis would certainly be inspirational – I mean someone who simply does brave things as they live […]
It’s Our Choice How We Respond to God’s Call
by Msgr. Joseph Calise I ADMIT THAT I am not a technological wizard, but I am also not completely inept. I am comfortable on the Internet, and any communicating I cannot do face-to-face I accomplish via e-mail. However, my phone is not a multitasking computer that can give me driving directions – my phone makes phone calls […]
Only God Can Provide True Happiness
by Msgr. Joseph Calise I HAVE BEEN involved with people in 12-step recovery for the past 23 years. I have had the wonderful opportunity to share time and stories with men and women, rich and poor, young and old, white collar, blue collar – and roman collar – who come together solely to explore their […]
God Wants Our Eternal Salvation
by Father John P. Cush I REALLY CONSIDER myself blessed to have been assigned to Rome for post-graduate doctoral work this past semester. Instead of just reading about Church history, I had the opportunity to live it out in the events of February and March, 2013. The resignation of our beloved Benedict XVI and his final days […]
Kindness and Courtesy Are Rewarded
by Father John P. Cush HERE’S A LITTLE riddle for you: How many people can fit on a bus in the city of Rome, Italy? The answer: always one more! As someone who has lived in Rome for a few years, in my first incarnation as a seminarian and as a newly ordained priest, and […]
Doing God’s Work Together Under His Command
by Father John P. Cush Sunday, July 7 In today’s Gospel, taken from the Evangelist Luke, we read of the commissioning of the disciples by the Lord. We see that the Lord does something a little bit unusual and perhaps for our modern standards, a bit inefficient! He sends his disciples out two-by-two. Why would […]
God Empowers Us to Go Forward in the Mission
by Sister Karen Cavanagh, C.S.J. “Follow Me.” “I will follow You wherever You go.” Today’s Scriptures are powerful reminders for our responses and behaviors in this “Ordinary Time.” They are anything but ordinary, and they are anything but easy to follow in the ordinary and in the less-than-ordinary events of our everyday lives. Human […]
Where Do We Draw the Line of Faith?
by Sister Karen Cavanagh, C.S.J. But you, who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15) Cross bearer… Chosen One… Savior… Christ of God! No ordinary times have we here. No ordinary reminders have we of grace received, of self-emptying for the sake of each one of us. Over the next few weeks in our […]
Nothing Ordinary About the Feast of Reconciliation
by Sister Karen Cavanagh, C.S.J. “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.” We continue through these “ordinary weeks” and are vividly reminded of the extraordinary, prodigal, overflowing and compassionate healing, forgiveness and hospitality of God in Jesus’ redemptive love. We are, again, comforted with our Holy Father’s words: “… sometimes […]