Healing and reforming ourselves from flaws, whether we are victims or the ones harming, requires honest reflection, trust and risk. It is through this path that we cooperate with God to re-form ourselves into the people who are originally created with dignity and for love.
Of course, simply paying a visit to one’s own local parish, Our Lady of Lourdes in Cincinnati, for instance, might also authenticate one’s faith. However, the very thought of traveling to a far-off destination with a sacred history will inevitably prove to be an overwhelming desire.
When my brother died, my mother didn’t want anyone to know it was suicide. She feared the priest would not bury my brother in our Catholic cemetery if he knew.
Alaska’s Supreme Court majority decision to strike down parental notifications on abortion displays a stunning lack of contact with the real effects that abortion has on young women.
Hunger is an issue about which we, as a community, feel passionately. It is why Catholic Social Services began initially, to help ensure our neighbors had enough food to feed themselves and their family.
Despite what may seem to us as planetary chaos, the universe is doing what it was created to do, at least until the creation of the first humans. It was only then that true chaos began to set in.
The so-called “Satanic prayer” at the Aug. 9 Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly meeting was widely reported on and left some Alaskans outraged. Others shook their heads or shrugged. Was this an earnest prayer for satanic principles to guide assembly members in discerning the public good or was it a tongue-in-cheek mockery of public invocations in general?
Catholic young people are falling away from the faith at a staggering rate as families and relatives struggle with how best to respond. Catholics United for the Faith in Anchorage invites the public to an evening with Father Michael Shields.
Religious education methods from 50 or 60 years ago simply aren’t working now. Millennials don’t accept church doctrine and authority just because it’s what they’re supposed to do. They need more. They need reasons to believe and causes to believe in. Unfortunately many parishes fail to offer either.
It is easy to question if we are making a difference when we may be looking for “quick fixes” and “big results” and forgetting the value that come from being present with people.