Aging well
I recently read that in the U.S., 10,000 people daily will reach age 65 (retirement age). This begs the question: How prepared am ‘I’ to accept aging?
Outliers
In the secular world, people are characterized as outliers in many ways. Not too long ago, a well-funded and orchestrated protest against the one-percenters of the ultra-high wealthy took place as Occupy Wallstreet. In the world of science and education, the outliers are those with the ultra-high IQ. In this Gospel which we recently heard in mass, Jesus is calling us to belong to a different group of outliers: those who truly love Him.
Finding peace
In 2013, I had a student who at the time directed a regional UN branch in the Democratic Republic of Congo during a time of great upheaval and violence. His job was to negotiate peace. In my student’s experience, a mere four men got 3000+ armed rebels to not only lay down their arms but to also integrate back into the national army. People of faith can do much, much, more.
Praying with children
Like all faith traditions, the Catholic Church has been losing its children to the secular world for the past 60 years. How would the world be different today if children, and parents, learned simple ways to pray?
Ezra’s atonement
Recently our mass readings included the passage of Ezra praying for God’s pardon on behalf of his people. It made me think how often I’ve prayed in remorse for my own offenses against God, and those of others, but not ours. It might seem a trivial distinction but those trivial details are usually the most important…