Dear Friends in Christ, An important new book has just been published, and I commend it to you with highest praise. “Strangers in a Strange Land: Living the Catholic Faith in a Post-Christian World” was written by Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, one of the most perceptive churchmen of our time, and this new book…

Dear Friends in Christ, “Be still and know that I am God.” This exhortation of Psalm 46 reveals the connection between sacred silence and being in the presence of the living God. Throughout Holy Scripture the prophets reveal the necessity of reverential silence as a condition for approaching the majesty and mercy of God, and…

Dear Friends in Christ, Ash Wednesday falls this year on 1 March, and so the beginning of Lent is less than three weeks away. Now is the time to prepare to keep a holy Lent by deciding on a path to a more intense and intentional following of the Lord Jesus in the Way of…

Dear Friends in Christ, I was only six years old in 1968, so my memories of that momentous year are dim and mostly about life in the first grade. But in that year, it seemed to many that the United States of America was coming apart at the seams. Riots in more than 100 cities…

Dear Friends in Christ, Christmas was forty days ago this Thursday, and that is why 2 February is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. According to Chapter 12 of Leviticus, every Jewish woman who gave birth required a ritual purification from her flow of blood, and a sacrifice was to be offered to…