The Good Word

Over a number of weeks now the Liturgy has been offering readings from Romans 8 This chapter means to build on and reverse the disheartening reality of Chapter 7 highlighted in Paul famous saying I know what is right and I want what is right but I do what is wrong who will save me from th

The Fourth of July is a most appropriate time to recall a discussion St Paul had in his First Letter to the Corinthians There in a dialogue form he hears someone s saying to him Everything is lawful to me Paul s responds But I do not want anything to dominate me He is thinkin

The feastday of St Thomas the Apostle is over but there remains a consideration that is valuable for undersanding the Gospel of John in which Thomas s story occurs The Thomas story is the story that completes John s presentation of the Jesus event John 21 while inspired Scripture

Before I said my first mass an old priest gave me two great pieces of advice You know when the congregation is filled with optimists After you have given a long series of announcements at the end of Mass and then you say and finally – people take out their car keys The second was Never

The Year of St Paul began on June 28 2008 and it seems right to make note of it before it recedes in the revelries of summer beginning with Fourth of July celebrations tomorrow Prior to St Paul s conversion he persecuted the Church and was trying to destroy it Gal 1 13 Paul recognized

The Lord be with you And also with you Not and with your spirit The rendering of Et cum spiritu tuo in a sense which included the whole person raised eyebrows back then when it first came out Had a fifth column of Anglo-Saxon anti-metaphysician logical positivists infiltra

Two additions to our Web site this week may be of interest to readers of The Good Word First the editorial in our July 7-14 issue looks at the upcoming synod on the Bible and the working document or instrumentem laboris for the conference that was released earlier this month The editors write

For all the great things the Church of yesteryear achieved it also did some terrible things One of the worst demands it made was that a Catholic who marries a person who is not a Catholic do so at a side altar oratory or in the sacristy of the Church How humiliating this directive was For how l

The birth of John was miraculous Luke tells us his parents were beyond the age of having children Elizabeth John s mother was sterile Still miraculously John leaped in his mother s womb at the presence of Jesus in the womb of Mary That John is mentioned in the Gospels at all is miraculou

A few years ago there was an English film entitled Secrets and Lies It charted the story of a dysfunctional family who sat on terrible secrets and told many lies for decades Like many successful dramatic films audiences flocked to see it not only because of its compelling story but also bec