The Lopers finalized their adoption at a Sept. 5 court hearing and embarked on a protracted flight home. On the morning of Sept. 11, they were on their last leg, hours from Texas, when the pilot re-routed them to a town they had never heard of: Gander, Newfoundland. They were told something vague about the U.S. airspace being closed.
As I think about the Senate hearings on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, the entire affair takes on the look of a monstrous distorting mirror where Americans could see reflected certain large realities that now darken our national life. Start with politics, surely the most obvious of these.
It was one of those days you never forget. Sitting on the beach one summer evening last year, my husband and I decided to pray the rosary.
Observing the stages of motherhood, the sages say of the baby and toddler years that “the days are long, but the years are short.”
If you’ve been sitting around wondering what you can do for the church in the midst of this crisis — or even if you haven’t — how about starting here?
Jesus was the consummate teacher. He came to reveal to the world the most important truths about God, his kingdom and the path to human flourishing. His teaching method is a work of art to be studied. At times, Jesus simply holds the crowds spellbound by his wisdom and authority. On occasion, he chastises individuals for their pride, hypocrisy and bad example. Sometimes, Jesus lets his disciples learn by hands-on experience as when he sends them ahead of him on a preaching mission. At other times he redirects their follies and re-channels their energies in new directions.
“Am I Hamlet or Don Quixote?” Pope Paul VI once asked that question about himself, and whatever his answer might have been, most people would say he was more than a little of both.
One of the side effects of shrinking family size is that middle children are disappearing. With more and more people having only one or two children, society is losing one of its great assets.
I imagine her reciting all of the intentions people have asked her to pray for and naming every single aunt, uncle and cousin before she starts to pray.
Way simpler
What would we learn if we simplified this Sunday’s Gospel story of the healing of the blind man, Bartimaeus?