One of the few things that is certain in life is that everyone will die at some point. Recently, we had a funeral for a 96-year-old woman who had been very active in the church. Her death had been coming for a while. Not every death is expected. We lost a beloved soccer coach last week who …
Did you see the story about the teacher who disciplined his students for saying “God Bless You”? I read the story on MSNBC at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44722587/ns/us_news-weird_news/. The teacher said he believed the students were being disruptive to the class by saying “God Bless You” when students would sneeze. The story says the students were sneezing “dramatically.” …
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It’s nice to know people care. I’m not talking about people who care about me. Two weeks we had major flooding in the southeast corner of our diocese from the remnants of Hurricane Lee. The Diocese of Rochester in which I live and serve covers a twelve county area. Only three counties (Chemung, Tioga, and …
To me one of the great treasures of the Catholic Church is that we are not just an agglomeration of individual churches. Each church has its own building but we share the same liturgy with every Latin Rite Catholic Church across the world. When a person goes to any Latin Rite Catholic Church in the …
Some people seem to think our faith doesn’t have much to do with the way we do our jobs. A person might say I am accountant or a engineer or work in a government office. My job doesn’t relate to my faith. I disagree. While the tasks we do at work may not seem to …
Today, one of our churches at Our Lady of the Lakes Parish, St. Januarius’, celebrated the dedication of its newly renovated sanctuary. The present church was built in the 1960’s. Another one of our churches is having some roof work done. Yet another is dealing with loose plaster. Just like we have to deal with …
Today’s readings (August 3, 2011) show two different responses of faith. In the first reading, the Israelites are preparing to enter the promised land. At God’s command, scouts are sent ahead to explore the area. The scouts return with reports that the land does “does indeed flow with milk and honey” and has much fruit …
The post that follows is the article I wrote for the cover of our bulletin at Our Lady of the Lakes for July 31, 2011. Death & Life Jesus knows what it is like to lose a loved one. Today’s Gospel begins with Jesus learning of the death of John the Baptist. When Jesus receives …
Is change a bad thing or a good thing? There are people who resist any change. Their argument may be as simple as ‘we have been doing it this way for years.’ On the other extreme are people who seem to want to change just to change. They might think it is strange to do …
Forgiveness can be a difficult thing. It can be difficult to forgive someone when they do something that hurts us. It can also be difficult to accept forgiveness that is offered to us after we have hurt someone. When someone tells us they forgive us, we might wonder if they really forgive us or if …
