Catholic

  • Discern

    Discern

    In the past several weeks, it has become clear that American Catholics have both a new opportunity and responsibility to do something with which they may not have a lot of practice: spiritual discernment.  In the time since the obligation and practice of mass attendance was suspended in March, individual Catholics have relied on their…

  • Re-form

    Re-form

    I was watching this video last night and was about half-way through when I burst into tears.   It’s a collaboration of over 65 churches and Christian movements in the UK, their music ministers calling down blessings over their country.  And if you watch their faces, you see their connection to the Holy Spirit, their…

  • Catholic

    Catholic

    I’m a Catholic and my heart is broken, again. An audio recording of a meeting between Catholic bishops and President Trump reveals a modern-day exchange of silver.  Catholic school funding + defense of the pro-life cause = political support and Catholic votes. Never mind this administration’s horrific, bungling, and careless late response to the pandemic,…

  • The Story

    The Story

    It’s Good Friday, and in this coronavirus time, we’re not gathering in our churches for the Stations of the Cross or for the services we’re used to.  We’re not venerating the Cross or singing the solemn songs together.  It may be harder for Christians to enter into the Story than it’s been in Holy Weeks…

  • Why

    Why

    I’m a Catholic making beef stew today on a Friday during Lent and I’m not going to eat it.  But, Kerry, I hear you saying, didn’t you hear that your local Cardinal Sean O’Malley lifted the obligation to abstain from meat during Lent due to the coronavirus? Yes, friend, I did hear that news, but…

  • Essential

    Essential

    In this time of crisis, we’re being stripped of quite a lot.  Roles, practices, relational habits and interaction, labels, even jobs or our health.  In addition, the way we practice our faith has completely changed.  Within my own church tradition, Catholics are being told we can confess our sins directly to God without a priest…

  • Normal

    Normal

    “I just can’t wait until this is all over and things can go back to normal.” I felt the fatigue and worry in my friend’s voice as she spoke these words, and I feel it, too.  I want to see my preschool music students face-to-face, want to gather with my friends and family.  I want…

  • Real

    Real

    I remember one morning from a few years ago.  It was very early, before the sun was even up, and I was driving my high school daughter to a waiting bus for her Washington DC class trip. I hugged her and watched the bus pull away, and on the way home, saw the sun was…

  • Fire

    There was a fire in my church.  Thankfully there wasn’t a lot of destruction, but the smoke damage remediation will take several weeks and so we’ve been unable to have mass.  It brings me back to the catastrophic fire which took place at Notre Dame in Paris almost one year ago and how the devastation…

  • Cradle

    Cradle

    I’m a Catholic music minister, and I’m wearing gray as I stand at the front of the church and sing the opening notes of the entrance song.  A gentleman from the funeral home leads pallbearers with the casket down the aisle, and following them are a group of tearful mourners, wearing black and clinging to…