Luceat!

About a week ago, I read this article about some wrangling (no pun intended) between horse-racing officials in New South Wales and the planners of the upcoming World Youth Day gathering in Sydney.
Today, I saw this on the BBC’s site: “Equine flu hits Sydney racehorses”
The second article talks about the potentially devastating financial losses bookies, [...]

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I was struck today by the introduction in the “Magnificat” to the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Pope Benedict is quoted:

“The message of the Church is there precisely in order to conflict with our behavior, to tear man out of his life of lies and bring clarity and truth. Truth makes demands, and [...]

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Today, I was reading the correspondence section in First Things Magazine. I was intrigued by those responding to George Weigel’s recent essay on the just war theory that had appeared a few months before in First Things. I found myself in the midst of war of words that instead of seeking truth and [...]

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Recently I was on a mission trip with FOCUS in Mexico. While in Mexico, I found myself reflecting on God’s placement of me in this world, mainly, why am I an American?
During this reflection, I began to ask myself what it means to be a patriot. This is a great question to reflect [...]

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In the spirit of last month’s theme [God for some reason did not intend for me to have internet for most of last month], I would love to introduce you to a Catholic, American authoress of the 21st century who has intrigued me in the last few years—Flannery O’Connor.
She is often associated with words like [...]

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I’ve been thinking about how the training and battlefield experience of soldier-saints like Ignatius of Loyola must have formed their approach to evangelization. I like to imagine that the founding of the Jesuits looked something like the opening scene from Patton (which you can find on youtube), but with less profanity.
More likely is my [...]

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As a missionary serving on college campuses one of the most common questions presented by skeptics to the Christian faith is, “why is the world so messed up if God is so good? Why is there so much suffering?” The terrible disaster that occurred in Minnesota will inevitably raise this question again.
This question [...]

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…have been greatly exaggerated.
Seeing as most of July has passed without much discussion on this here blog, the next several days will see posts on a variety of subjects.  Some will touch on the Americana theme we set last month, others will not.
We have a theme picked out for August, which I’ll present a bit [...]

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