In his encyclical on the Eucharist, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, published in 2003, Pope John Paul II repeated St. Paul’s admonition to the early church: “[I]t is ‘unworthy’ of a Christian community to partake of the Lord’s Supper amid division and indifference towards the
Efforts to improve church management are often sidetracked by three mindsets. First, we can misunderstand the truth that the church is timeless. Of course, Jesus Christ is timeless, some teachings are timeless and much of our worship is timelessbut many other behaviors of the church are time-bound.
My mother, father, little sister and I were living with my widowed grandmother, Frieda Hambleton, in her house in a poor neighborhood of Wichita Falls, Tex. We were crowded, but it was what I had always known, and I was happy. Then she built a house on Grant Street, in the developing part of the cit
This year is the 50th anniversary of the death of Daniel A. Lord, S.J. (1888-1955), one of the best-known American Jesuits of the last century. Though now forgotten by many, Lord was a larger-than-life figure in the seemingly confident, cohesive preconciliar church in America. Catholics, especially
We are pilgrim people, marching through time but anchored in eternity. We are waiting for a new life to unfold as we celebrate a life that we already own. This is our Christian existence. The gift of hope keeps our eyes on the future; that same hope secures our existence here and now. Hope has an im
Reading the obituary of the esteemed, recently deceased John F. Long, S.J., (Signs of the Times, 10/10) and the tribute to him in a recent address by Brian E. Daley, S.J., reported in America (Signs of the Times, 11/7), I began to wonder what the results