One of the most beautiful and symbolic gestures of the Catholic faith occurs when a person is unable to get to church to participate in the Eucharist and the parish sends one of its members to that person with a consecrated host. The hunger must be satisfied. Without community a person is alone; wit
This Sunday repeats the Gospel for the Second Sunday of Lent Am 3 11 while the first two readings are selected for the feast Though celebrated from the fifth century in the Eastern church the Transfiguration was introduced into the Western calendar only in 1457 to celebrate the victory over t
According to a recent newsletter of the Administration on Aging, I have something in common with 12 million Americans. I’m a caregiver. The great majority of us are women (75 percent, the A.O.A. reports). Half of us also work outside the home. This caregiving business is really booming. As the
Kent State is my American Jerusalem. Ever since I stopped at the campus on a whim while driving across Ohio in 1993, I have made yearly pilgrimages to this sacred-secular ground of antiwar activity, where four students died and nine were injured. But I’m no nostalgic baby boomer, no former rad
If one is looking for a book on grief and grieving based on lived experience rather than more remote psychosocial theories then Thomas Attig rsquo s How We Grieve is the resource to read Although it is not a brand new book first published in 1996 in this reviewer rsquo s opinion no book publish
Six years have passed over the Holy See since 1870, and its organization has been dying out year after year. All this darkness, confusion, depression, inactivity and illness, made me understand the Tristis est anima mea usque ad mortem [My soul is sorrowful even unto death].The author of these words
My mother in an unusually arch moment once proffered a solution to all the church-state debates about Christmas cr ches on public squares Take the clothes off the Wise Men she said That way they could get an arts award Jane Alexander former head of the National Endowment for the Arts likes w
Encuentro 2000 Celebrates Diverse U.S. ChurchEncuentro 2000 opened with Native American drums calling the participants from across the nation to gather in assembly. At the end of its final liturgy, 5,000 worshipers tied ribbons to one another’s wrists, a traditional Hmong sign of sending forth
The timing could not have been more appropriate: On the first day of the annual conference in Washington, D.C., of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the Department of Housing and Urban Development released its report to Congress on worst-case housing needs. The title itself goes to the hear
Thanks to medical advances, Americans are living longer than ever before. A dark underside to this picture, however, is the rising incidence of elder abuse—an increase that is related to the growing number of elderly people in the United States. Demographers predict that the numbers of elderly
I am a slothful pray-er. At Mass I pray standing up, kneeling or sitting along with the flock. But at home I seem to pray more earnestly—in a prone position. Sheer laziness, probably, but I rationalize the act by assuring myself that God doesn’t mind. The posture isn’t important, n
It could be argued that fundamentalism is a serious contemporary problem that affects all aspects of society and will likely influence all cultures for the foreseeable future Such is in fact Karen Armstrong rsquo s assumption Her book makes an attempt to understand the development of fundamentali
Throughout church history, pastoring (shepherding) has been a prime image for leadership and care, and today pastoral ministry includes not only those named or ordained as pastors but many who follow different calls to serve and lead others.
CD, Internet Site Aiming for World Youth Day AudienceYoung people around the world will be able to participate in some of the World Youth Day activities without leaving home, through Internet and music CD’s. The Nashville-based Gaylord Entertainment Co. has been contracted by the Vatican to cr
Here in America, I’ve watched mothers in the kitchen after a meal throw away more food, and better food, than I might eat in Russia in a week.... And I simply can’t help staring when people leave their plates half full, as they do so often in restaurants. Who wrote these words, and when?
Wags in the divinity school at the University of Chicago used to love retelling the joke about someone who tries to call Professor Martin Marty rsquo s office and gets the following response from Marty rsquo s secretary quot Could you hold on for about a minute and a half while Professor Marty fin