Sometime back a troubled Catholic asked me why the Church engaged in official persecution of the Jews. He noted there were official decrees of persecution from Church Councils (for instance, Lateran IV) and asked why, when Pope John Paul II apologized for such actions, he only referred to “Christians” who
At our house, we have a little critter box full of stick bugs, whose sole task in life is to eat the ivy leaves we give them, to excrete itsy-bitsy stick bug pellets and (one presumes) to occasionally contribute to the gene pool of stick bugdom. I can think of
August 2000 marks my 42nd birthday. It is a strange thing to arrive at this particular birthday because I’ve been looking forward to it for about 30 years or so and yet, now that it’s here, it does not at all seem like what I expected back then. Back then, in
Every July, Americans hold the Secular Feast of St. Thomas Jefferson and take a little time out to renew their baptismal vows of citizenship in the American Experiment. As part of that rite, Americans take a small amount of time (between the sacred meals of fried chicken and spare ribs
I’ve been watching old Jimmy Stewart movies again, which always has a strong effect on me. For instance, there’s a moment in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington when the innocent young senator is trying to draft a bill to build a boy’s camp back in his home state. His hard-boiled secretary, Saunders,
Life is about play at least much as it’s about work. I say this because the month of May inexorably reminds me of it. In a funny way, May is a more elfin and playfully subversive month than all the others, including the months more traditionally associated with goofing off
“If April showers bring May flowers,” I asked my four-month-old son as he lay on my chest, “what do May flowers bring?” I waited for a reply but four-month-olds are uncommonly reticent about speaking, so finally I was compelled to answer my own riddle. “Pilgrims!” I cried with glee. My
The other morning I was standing there in the shower when a little epiphany hit me on my soggy head. As I reached up for the shampoo bottle I noticed something my eyes had seen hundreds of times but my brain had never comprehended till that moment. There are instructions
One of the traditional emphases during Lent is the duty of “almsgiving”. The tradition of the Church here comes straight out of ancient Israel and the duty that was enjoined upon the Jews by God to care for the stranger, the orphan, and the widow. In many ways, ancient Israel
My four year old son, Peter, has struck up a friendship with an invisible acquaintance named “Parrot Man.” You might suppose from the name that Parrot Man was either a Parrot or a Man or a little of both. But there you’d be wrong. Parrot Man is called Parrot Man
Pretty much every day that it’s not raining I am, at some point, summoned “owside” as my two year old Sean says and bidden to take his and my three year old, Peter’s, hands and get going. It doesn’t really matter where we go as long as we see certain
Here is the text of a whimsical email conversation I had with a friend once (italicized passages are the words of my correspondent): Q: “Mark, is a dog’s mouth cleaner than a human’s? What the official infallible Catholic position on this question?” A: In his 16th Century encyclical Bene Canus (Good Doggie), Pope
The other night I had a dream full of deep profound spiritual insights. I remember thinking, in the midst of the dream, “I must remember this. This is the column I’m going to write for the next issue of New Covenant.” It was brilliant. I was a genius. I awoke and couldn’t remember a thing.
Carl Jung once observed that a mark of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again in the futile hope that this time the results would be different. I sometimes think of Jung when I consider my naively optimistic fellow Washingtonians-and someone else I know. The vast majority of Washingtonians
May is the only month in the calendar whose name has been made into a verb. (March does not count because “to march” is not derived from the name of the month.) To “may” or to go “maying” is a splendid old European custom which has fallen into disuse in
My home town Seattle was largely settled by escaped Scandahoovians who were chased from northern Europe by the dark climate and dour Lutheran outlook. They came to America, only to find the Great Plains already dotted with thousands of other Scandahoovian settlements, hunkered down in the bitter cold winters and
“Other countries have ‘climate’” remarked Chesterton once in a fit of patriotic fervor. “England has weather.” As a native Washingtonian, I am inclined to sympathize with Chesterton here. We Washingtonians enjoy weather, not just climate, here in the upper left hand corner of the map. And in March, Washington is decidedly
When I was in high school, every February saw the annual ritual of “Sadie Hawkins Day.” Sadie Hawkins was a character in the old cartoon strip “L’il Abner” who took things into her own hands when it came to datin’, courtin’ and all the rest of the male/female frou-frou that
My pal, Dave, recently spent a year in Poland. While he was there, he discovered that, at least in the diocese of Poznan, the celebration of Christmas extends from December 25 to February 2, the Presentation of the Lord. For weeks after we earnest Americans had resumed our position of
Every December 1, my mind fleets back to 1986 and to a small bedroom in a small apartment in Seattle. My wife, Janet, and I had just opened the first window in the Advent calendar when Jan announced that I had better call the doctor because it looked like it
It is fitting that October is the month of the Feast of St. Francis. St. Francis was not a bookish fellow at all. And yet, for all his unbookishness, he had one quirk which sets him off from much of information-soaked modernity: he wrote poetry. Poetry is, for us, vaguely
Somebody once said that we Americans honor prophets, not priests. That is, we believe, or at least respect, almost any religious message, as long as the person delivering it claims to base it on some ineffable personal experience of the divine or at least upon some conviction arising from private
“The good news about the Catholic Church is: it’s like a big family,” said my friend Mike. “The bad news about the Catholic Church is, it’s like a big family.” Truer words were never spoken. And they account very well for why the Church often seems to look so different
The origin of the term “holiday” is Holy Day. A Holy Day is a day set apart for something. Our present understanding of the term “holy” always assumes that the thing set apart is set apart for God. This is not surprising. Words like “holy” are pretty much only the province of
“Wow!,” said my friend, looking up from his science magazine, “Did you know DNA is folded into each cell nucleus in your body in a very precise and compact way? It says here it’s like 30 miles of spider web thread carefully folded into a cherry pit!” I think this
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