Palm Sunday & Paralipsis

Photo: Palm Sunday Mass at St. Peter’s Square in Rome in April 2015

Like many people around the world, I’m participating in the mass to the extent that livestream and personal intention makes possible. Today, my friends and I watched a live broadcast of Bishop Barron’s Sunday mass for Palm Sunday. And as usual, Bishop Barron gave a wonderful homily about the Passion narrative we heard in today’s gospel. While it’s a long gospel that offers us much upon which to reflect, I found it striking that Bishop Barron did not discuss the pandemic at all. Continue reading “Palm Sunday & Paralipsis” →

A Time to Die

“The cemeteries of the abbeys will always be in bloom.”

This evening I read a beautiful book, A Time to Die: Monks on the Threshold of Eternal Life, written by Nicolas Diat and with a forward by Robert Cardinal Sarah.

Diat travelled to several monasteries in France to visit monks and learn from them about the mystery of death and the art of dying well. Continue reading “A Time to Die” →

Love and Death

With Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday falling on the same date this year, today has been an especially opportune occasion to contemplate the lives of the saints and death. Continue reading “Love and Death” →