COMMENTARY
An enriching summer course in stained glass spirituality (July 2011)
Implementing a Twitter firewall at home is a bit like asking a roommate to hide your Halloween candy. It is an act of surrender and of conquest. What you lack in self control you make up for in self knowledge. My self-imposed Twitter sabbatical has been a good move, setting …
Knowing what we desire is a spiritual first step
"Lord, what do I desire, or what can I desire, besides thee?" St. Ignatius Loyola On the shore at the bay there is a jungle gym area where my daily visits usually include a lesson learned in observing children at play. Yesterday’s lesson would have been fit for America’s Funniest …
Parental notification law long overdue in New Jersey
New Jersey is one of 14 states without a parental notification law. A law passed in 2004 was knocked down when our State Supreme Court ruled that our State Constitution disallowed it. Consequently, the only way New Jersey can succeed in getting this much needed law is to have a …
Cut funding to Planned Parenthood
Wake up America!What a horror that in this difficult economic time when funds for worthwhile programs are being drastically cut – the federal funding for Planned Parenthood to the tune of $363 million was left intact? Everyone knows they are the #1 abortion business in America.Write and call your Senator …
A message from Bishop David M. O'Connell, C.M. to seminarians
When I was a boy in Catholic school, I remember so clearly the Sisters telling us about the “four states in life: the priesthood, the religious life, marriage and the single life.” Although they were also described as “vocations,” when we heard the term “vocations” we usually associated it with …
Remembering is as simple as leaving behind a stone
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” Galatians 5:22 My mother-in-law was a feisty woman, who was always up for a rousing debate, especially about her faith. Still, given that she was a cradle Catholic who spent several years in a …
Gold stars, blue ribbons and Facebook likes
My friend is blogging again after a four-month hiatus. “In the last week, two people have asked me about this little blog of mine, and because my ego is easily stroked,” she wrote, “I’m back.”
Real love requires more than leftovers
My son and daughter-in-law are animal lovers, and even before they moved in to their new house, with lots of space and a great yard, they were fostering the biggest Great Dane I have ever seen, the Snuffleupagus of Great Danes, Pluto. They made room for him in their tiny …
All of us need to live the faith as well as to learn the faith
School is back in session, religious education programs have begun, there is a crispness in the night air, and we are about to begin seeing the early Christmas decorations in the stores, which seem to have crept up on and even passed Columbus Day in places. For most of us, …
Keeping the Faith
Father Douglas Freer, former pastor of St. Rose Parish, Belmar, is vicar for Catholic Education in the Diocese of Trenton. Father Freer supervises the Offices of Catholic Schools, Catechesis and Evangelization, the Institute for Lay Ecclesial Ministry, and all formation certificate programs, as well as the Holy Innocents Society.
Catholic schools are a shared ministry
Rising costs of education are putting an amazing strain on our Catholic school families, and identified need far exceeds what we can offer in tuition assistance.
Puppy love, whale watching and St. Francis
Across the country, young married couples have settled on the perfect preparation for parenthood: a puppy.
'Bare Branches'
Deliberate gendercide, forced abortions and sterilization, a nation missing millions of its daughters. Like the proverbial pebble, China’s One-Child Policy has created ripples of ill-considered effects which, in addition to undermining the stability and prosperity of its own nation, continue to embrace the devaluing of human life – in particularly …
Will there be meatloaf in heaven?
Recently, I made the familiar 160 mile drive to Albany, where I was born and raised, and where family memories play hide and seek behind low rock walls along the New York State Thruway, and yell “home free!” most often, it seems, when I pull in to the parking lot …
Praying that families will make the most of Year of Faith
Sometimes the most important questions are the most basic ones. Sometimes these questions are also the most complex. Sometimes the questions occupy our thoughts for a lifetime.
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