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Last Sunday, I attended Mass with the Filipino community in Tel Aviv, Israel. It was the closest catholic parish, per Google. Eric, a fellow Ph.D. student at Notre Dame, and I took Bus 5. We alighted at the bus stop nearest the parish, walking the remaining distance to the small albeit beautiful church called Our Lady of Valor...

I like to think of myself as adventurous when it comes to food. Some of my friends can attest to the fact that I don’t have a favorite dish but enjoy any and every good food. Whereas some people might be comfortable eating only particular foods they like, I like to try out new things,  even at the same restaurants. My philosophy in this matter is that the world has so much to offer, why limit myself to only a few options? [Click to read more]

Last weekend, the universal church celebrated the Solemnity of Corpus Christi - The body and blood of Christ. This celebration marked the beginning of the parish phase of the three-year National Eucharistic Revival called for by the bishops of the United States. The bishops articulate the purpose of the Year of Parish Revival in this manner: to discern how we might “heal, form, convert, unify, and send” our parishioners through a “rekindled relationship with Jesus in the Eucharist.” [Click to read more]

A parishioner asked me last weekend for an explanation of the picture of a human skull on the front cover of our bulletin, and I told her it was to remind us of our mortality. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday when we receive ashes on our foreheads and we are reminded that we are dust and unto dust we shall return. This symbol of the human skull is to call our attention to this very truth - Memento Mori, Remember you must die. We must never let this be lost on us that we are only on earth for a brief moment. No matter how long one lives on earth, one must surely return home. Lent is that season the Church gives us to refocus our attention on the most essential thing, which is our relationship with the Lord. [Click to read more]

Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy (Leviticus 19:2). This is an imperative, not a suggestion. God does not play games. He spells out what he demands from the people of Israel of old, and from us, the new Israel. Holiness is that quality that makes us like unto God. God is holy because he is utterly Other, and removed from everything else. He is the One God, not one among many. And God’s holiness speaks of his transcendence. To be holy is to be ‘set apart.’ We are called to be holy and be separated as well. But from what must we be separated? The separateness that scripture calls for is that we be set apart for the Lord. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that man is the only creature willed by God for its own sakes (CCC. 356)...

The season of Lent is quickly approaching. As with everything in life, proper planning is essential for success. The spiritual life is no exception. We have been praying and reflecting on how to make this year's Lent more prayerful and fruitful. We are introducing the praying of the Liturgy of the Hours fifteen minutes before our weekday Masses on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday beginning on the Thursday after Ash Wednesday. [Click to read more]

The way Catholics ought to live should be informed by the liturgy and the creed that are developed and expressed in the liturgy. So, what we believe and act upon in the world ought to flow from the liturgy and should lead us back to the liturgy. This connects Lex vivendi with the other two - lex orandi and lex credendi. In the liturgy the church enacts her faith through ritual actions, prayers and proclamations. But the liturgy is not an end in itself, such that we do the liturgy and go home and do no more. The church has the mandate to sanctify the earth. This is why worship must lead to mission and back... [Click to read more]

The greatest gift our Lord Jesus Christ left us is the gift of himself in the Holy Eucharist. This gift is unlike any other, and cannot be compared to anything we know or imagine. It is evidence of the depth of his love for humanity... [Click here to read more]

Fr. Julius reflects on the great gift of the Eucharist and shares an excerpt from Pope John PAul II's Ecclesia de Eucharistia

Fr. William reflects on the mystery of the incarnation and the meaning of Christmas

Our Lord Jesus, whose birth we celebrate at Christmas, is accustomed to the various experiences common to human beings...This same Jesus says, Come! He can identify with our own experiences. Have you lost a loved one? He did too. Have you been betrayed by loved ones? He was too. Have you been humiliated and stripped of your dignity? He is familiar with that as well. He knows whatever we are going through. And he says, Come! [Click to read more]

Fr. William shares his reflections on what it means to be an Advent Church. [Click to read]

We have such a compassionate God! It blows my mind every time I stop and really reflect on it! Who is this God who is so great and majestic and yet so full of mercy and concern for me?! He speaks tenderly to my heart as He spoke tenderly all those years ago to Jerusalem through His faithful prophets. And, like Jerusalem, I must hear His words of comfort and liberation, let them seep into my very being, and then go forth as a herald to share them with anyone who will listen! [Click here to read more]

The Third Sunday of Advent is Gaudete Sunday. The term Gaudete refers to the first word of the Entrance Antiphon, “Rejoice.” Our celebration today echoes those words, “Rejoice: the Lord is nigh.” This weekend, the celebrant at Mass has the option of wearing rose-colored vestments, and we light the rose-colored candle on our Advent wreath to emphasize our joy as Christmas draws near. The lighter colored candle also speaks of the coming of Jesus, who is the light of the world, and whose light dispels the darkness of night. The near arrival of our redemption should be a cause of great joy for us... [Click here to read more]

God has a passionate desire to bring all men to Him, renewing all things. The prophets often spoke in the midst of sorrow and confusion, the aftermath of destruction and displacement, and when God’s people had turned away. They relayed His call for repentance and reform, the hope of restoration, and the promise of all nations coming to know Him. [Click here to read more]

The Eucharist is in its very core an act of Thanksgiving. We give thanks to God who is the source of our being, and who keeps us in existence. This is the most fitting thing to do. And as we respond in the Preface, “it is right and just.” This weekend the church begins a new Liturgical season, the season of Advent. Advent is the season of preparation for Christmas. Major feasts in the church are marked by a period of preparation... [Click here to read more]

This weekend the church celebrates the Solemnity of Jesus Christ the Universal King. This feast was inaugurated for the universal church by Pope Pius XI in 1925 with the encyclical letter, Quas Primas. Pope Pius attributed the evils of the time to the fact that men had cast Jesus and his holy laws out of their lives. These had no place in people’s private or political lives. This rejection of Jesus as Savior and the refusal to come under his reign will continue to make peace elusive. This feast was therefore to call all people to acknowledge Jesus’ supremacy as King over all of creation and to submit to his kingship... [Click to read more]

As the liturgical season draws to its end, we will begin to see a shift in focus to the end of time, the last days, judgment and what follows. Last weekend the first reading presented us with the example of a Hebrew mother and her sons who demonstrated courage in the face of persecution, even to the point of willingly accepting bodily death in defense of the faith and traditions of their fathers. The story offered us one of the earliest Old Testament references to the belief in the resurrection, a life after death, implied in belief in the restoration of severed limbs. The saints, the heroes of our faith, did not see this earthly life as all there is. They believed that there is life even after death. And this faith urged them to live joyfully even when people treated them with contempt and so much hate. They knew that their destination was not this world, but the world which Christ had gone to prepare after his resurrection and ascension. [Click here to continue reading]