- Melanie Gideon, in a feature on her memoir, “The Slippery Year,” in today's New York Times“The goal is to be awake in your own life. ... Sometimes you have to leave the country to jar yourself awake, and sometimes you have to just go more deeply into your own life.”
The Gospel at Mass today is the well-known passage on Christ's miraculous feeding of the 5,000 with the boy's five loaves and two fish.
For many Christian traditions, today (July 22) is the feast day or memorial of Saint Mary Magdalene. She was the first evangelist of Christ's Resurrection.
Frank McCourt: The Journey of an Ordinary Teacher from NYU Steinhardt on Vimeo.
Machiavelli said a leader should be feared as well as loved. Obama is loved by the Democratic chairmen, but he is not feared. On health care, Obama has emphasized cost control. The chairmen flouted his priorities because they don’t fear him. On cap and trade, Obama campaigned against giving away pollution offsets. The chairmen wrote their bill to do precisely that because they don’t fear him. On taxes, Obama promised that top tax rates would not go above Clinton-era levels. The chairmen flouted that promise because they don’t fear him.
The editorial page of Sunday's New York Times included an "Appreciation" of Walter Cronkite, the famed television news broadcaster who died Friday at the age of 92.Some deaths end only a life. Some end a generation. Walter Cronkite’s death ends something larger and more profound. He stood for a world, a century, that no longer exists. His death is like losing the last veteran of a world-changing war, one of those men who saw too much but was never embittered by it.
Like several other places in the New Testament, the Gospel at Mass today leads us to think of Jesus as a "shepherd." The passage also speaks to the importance of going away, sometimes, to "a deserted place and rest a while."One of the lessons of this Sunday’s gospel is that after the apostles have done their amazing work – we heard last week about the miracles they performed – they returned to Christ, who reminded them that the job of being a faithful Christian isn’t all work. It’s rest. It’s prayer. It is seeking out a deserted place to find peace.
In the chaos of daily life, each of us needs to return to Christ, and to find a deserted place to rest, a sea of tranquility for prayer.
4. Never, ever, under any circumstances, tell people in a homily that it might be spiritually enriching to pray for our enemies and then suggest a name. I did that once, mentioning Osama bin Laden, and the congregation actually gasped. I never heard the end of it.
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7. But despite all that, no amount of preparation can prepare you for the miraculous. The first time I baptized a baby, I made a mental note to check out my eyeglass prescription, until I realized I was having trouble seeing because my eyes were blurred by my own tears. Ministerial life has been like that. I have been moved and inspired by the boundless joy of a couple on their wedding day, the giddiness of a mother and father dabbing the water from their baby’s brow on the day of his baptism and the heartfelt handshake of a man who was grateful for something I mentioned in the pulpit. I have dried tears at funerals (sometimes my own) and smiled at small children who trot around the aisles during my homilies. I have been reminded, week after week, at wakes and weddings, at fundraisers and first Communions, that I am a part of something that is, like the mysteries of the rosary, joyous, luminous, sorrowful and glorious.
I have had a front-row seat for the great milestones of life and have shared in the worries and wonders and hopes of the people in the pews. I do not know most of their names, but they know me, and they know my wife, and they wave at us in the supermarket or stop us on the subway and go out of their way to say hello or how are you or thank you. I have been doing this for only two years, but already I’ve witnessed more miracles than I can count.
Friday night, we caught a late showing of "Brüno" at Destinta Theaters in Bridgeville, PA.The gospel is meant to be lived on its feet -- taken to others, one foot in front of the other, one step at a time. It is to be taken beyond places that are flat, and safe and comfortable, to deserts and mountains and plains, to places where you may find yourself tired, trudging, where the terrain may be rough and the hills steep. The trip won’t necessarily be easy.
But it is one we all are asked to take. It is the great adventure of living the Catholic Christian faith, and taking it into the world.
All you need are sandals. And a walking stick. And someone else to share the journey. Take nothing else. It is the journey itself, and the willingness to make that journey, that matters.
Perhaps true for life in general, actually.“You see again and again the companies that succeed are not the ones that have the brilliant strategy,” he said, “but the ones that course-correct along the way.”
The baby boom continues.
Unlike last Sunday's Gospel, with its two great examples of faith and healing, Jesus has a more difficult time in this week's Gospel at Mass. And, in his hometown nonetheless.
Welcome to the party, little Ann! May the Holy Spirit always be your guide.
Melissa, who also grew up outside of Pittsburgh, told me that Ann is a true city baby. As Ann needed some coaxing to make her big entrance, Melissa and Tim were able to calmly take the N-W subway from Queens to the hospital in Manhattan for the birth.
Photo hat-tip: Waldie's World
A very happy Independence Day to all!
