Jesus preached by way of parable I reckon that if it worked for the master the disciple can ply the same craft which is why I often begin sermons with a story something that hopefully has a emotional hook to draw in the hearer But the Parable of the Prodigal Son is already so emotionally evoc

Had he made the wrong choice of schools His courses were demanding quot We have tremendous long and hard lessons to get through in both French and Algebra quot The discipline was dogged quot They give a man one of these black marks for almost nothing If he gets two hundred a year they dismis

Billy Wilder rsquo s movie The Last Weekend about the suicide of an alcoholic author won the 1946 Academy Award for Best Picture Wilder also garnered that year rsquo s Oscar for Best Director and Ray Milland won Best Actor portraying the final days of a binging alcoholic The film gained a four

Sometimes the way to understand one story is by way of another The story which we rsquo d all like to understand more fully is the resignation of our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI The story the Church sets before us this First Sunday of Lent is that of Christ rsquo s Temptation Perhaps a story

nbsp Sometimes class discussions veer in a direction I don rsquo t intend For example I don rsquo t remember what aspect of the Incarnation I was trying to present in a class of freshman college students when a young man suddenly asked quot Where does Holy Water come from quot I was still t

Some of the best theology penned has been produced by novelists Take for example the figure of Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo rsquo s Les Mis rables If you haven rsquo t read the novel perhaps you rsquo ve seen the musical or recently taken in its film version In 19th century France Jean Valjea

Knowing that his election had precipitated the secession of the southern states but that as yet no shots had been fired Abraham Lincoln ended his first inaugural address on March 4 1861 with this appeal I am loath to close We are not enemies but friends We must not be enemies Though passio

The challenge of regularly visiting a group of shut-ins, or those confined to bed, is that each expects you to arrive at the same time each week, and yet each also pleads that you stay a little longer than you did the week before.

nbsp We seldom remember when or where we learned life rsquo s truly useful lessons Plato suggested that this is because deep down the soul has always known these truths though that teaching of Plato didn rsquo t seem familiar to me the first time I heard it Perhaps we simply remember the be

He was a soldier of fortune who became a mercenary for the usual reasons: fame, fortune, females. As the youngest son of minor Spanish nobility, there was small prospect of these at home, and his industry and bravery were paying off, when a French canon ball tore open his left calf and broke his right shin. I igo was confined to bed for months, his leg clumsily set, re-broken, and set again. A protruding limb was sawn off. His leg had to be stretched with weights. He passed his long convalescence reading books, either on chivalry or the saints. To his surprise, he began to enjoy the latter, to draw meaning and hope from them. They led to a much deeper Catholicism than Ignatius of Loyola had previously known.