Friends Peace be with you.  What do bunnies, chocolate, or eggs have to do with the resurrection of Jesus? It’s all wrapped up in the Easter celebration, right, but what is the connection between them? Several comedians have very joyously pointed out that there is none. We’ve really rammed together two celebrations that share the same time frame. One celebration is about spring and the new life that is associated with this time of year. Birds' eggs hatch in the spring and give us baby birds. Rabbits have bunnies in the spring. Chocolate is the international symbol of love and romanc ..read more

 Friends Peace be with you.  In 1967, television producer Sherwood Schwartz had an idea to create a show depicting a perfect socialist utopia. He envisioned a situation in which seven people from different walks of life were forced to exist with one another. They all just happened to be on a three hour tour that got involved in bad weather and blown onto a deserted island. I’m, of course, talking about the television show Gilligan’s Island. You’ve probably never considered that this silly show was an attempt to put forward a vision of socialism. But think about it. Despite coming fro ..read more

 Friends Peace be with you.  I am not a morning person. I marvel at people who enjoy waking up early. I wake up at 5:40 most days, not because of personal desire but because that’s the time they wake up at Conception Abbey in Missouri where I am an oblate. This way, I can start prayer with them at 6:00 and mirror their day until I enter the confessional at 7:45 am. During that entire time, there’s a subconscious part of me that would very much like to curl up and go back to bed. However, I know that, once I get my black clothes on, the time for sleep has passed and it’s time for work ..read more

The challenge of preaching on Good Friday is that the Passion contains too much content to do it adequately, let along completely. To employ a cliche, it’s like drinking from a firehose. Just to give one example, I could talk about how Jesus begins our salvation from sin in a garden. He enters a garden to undo the destruction wrought by Adam and Eve in the Garden. Jesus’ is, therefore, the new and more perfect Adam sent to reverse the punishment of death that was given to Adam and Eve through disobedience. That’s just one piece in a million pieces I could focus on. Instead, I really felt God ..read more

Friends Peace be with you. Have you ever been sitting with some friends and started telling stories about the past and had a flood of memories come to mind? I’m guessing we all have. Sometimes they’re positive and sometimes they’re negative. It tends to happen for me when I get together with college friends. We start to talk about a choir tour trip or a class we had together with a particularly enigmatic professor or a rooming situation and memories come flooding back. I have a feeling, this is how the scriptures were written. With all due respect to the Chosen’s theory that St. Matthew and ..read more

Friends Peace be with you. Should we be having a fish fry on Good Friday? I get this question from people outside and inside the parish each year. Yes, we should and here’s why. First, I understand that it is one of two days, along with Ash Wednesday, of both abstaining from meat and fasting from food in general. But, fasting means we get to eat one regular-sized meal along with two smaller meals that don’t equal the large meal. The fish fry meal is our regular-sized reward after a full-day of smaller meals that don’t equal it. How could anything equal the best fish in town anyway, right? A ..read more

 Friends Peace be with you.  As some of you know, the series The Chosen has been released in theaters. Last week, I had the opportunity to watch the first three episodes and this past Thursday I watched the next three. If you haven’t watched any of this season and intend to do so, don’t worry. I’m not going to give away any of the plot but I will talk about a couple of feelings I’ve had that I don’t think will have any effect when you watch it. One of the challenges they face is trying to integrate all four gospels into a singular story without needing to add details that are not pre ..read more

 Friends Peace be with you.  I became aware of a concerning trend for bachelorette parties happening in a previous assignment. Apparently, it’s not uncommon for people who want a more tame bachelorette party to invite in a psychic and have the person do a seance or read palms or do some other game that is essentially divination. If you ask a participant, they’re likely to say that it’s just for fun and they don’t really believe the psychic has any powers. The truth is, however, that we, as Catholics, need to be really cautious about this practice and need to avoid assuming nothing ba ..read more

 Friends Peace be with you.  I remember hearing a homily Archbishop Jackels gave a few years ago to a group of deacons he was ordaining about how their mission in the church was changing from being primarily doers to being orderers. It was a good reminder for me, who tends to be most comfortable doing things, that I have a larger mission of ordering. Part of the rationale for this has to do with the fact that there are big projects that need to get done and they can’t fall on one person’s shoulders. But there’s a larger, more important reality that also distinguishes the way the chur ..read more

 Friends Peace be with you.  Last summer, I accompanied a group of students to Rochester, Minnesota for the Steubenville North conference. Some of these students will be raising funds after Mass tonight to attend again next summer. It was a great weekend of listening to speakers and watching our young people grow in their faith. On the last day of the conference, I was in the room that served as the sacristy with all the other priests waiting for Mass to begin when the celebrant, Bishop Robert Barron, came walking in. This name may not mean anything to you but he’s a bit of a Catholi ..read more