Help Me, My daughter, to save souls. Join your sufferings to My Passion and offer them to the Heavenly Father for sinners. –Jesus’ instruction to Saint Faustina (Diary #1032)– “Dad, can I drive the car?” This request did not spring from the lips of an eager adolescent with
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Homily delivered on the 50th wedding anniversary of Anna Marie & Richard Culver 20 November 2015 Our Lady of Perpetual Help Chapel, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania “Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain
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“Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means “God is with us.” –Matthew 1:23– Some years ago, I was fortunate enough to travel in Scotland along with three other priest friends. As our rented minivan bumped along the highland
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You are the light of the world. –Matthew 5:14– Imagine you are setting up luminaria for Christmas Eve. You have carefully positioned dozens of alternating red and green paper bags along your driveway and sidewalk, each bag containing a little sand and one candle. Now the sun is down. You
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For years now, we Christians have been told by the secular world that the use of the temporal designations “Anno Domini” (A.D.) and “Before Christ” (B.C.) is utterly insensitive to the feelings of those who do not happen to worship Jesus. Instead, we are all but forced to replace
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For at the resurrection they will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but will be as angels of God in heaven. –Matthew 22:30– What? No marriage in the afterlife? The greatest bond of love a man and woman can know on earth will not survive into the hereafter?
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Another Lent is already upon us. It hardly seems possible. When we think of Lent, we usually think of “giving up” something. We ask each other, “What are you going to give up for Lent this year?” Yet I believe this approach somehow misses the mark. Lent is not a
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I taught sophomores at Bethlehem Catholic High School for twenty-four years. To this day, I sometimes have doubts as to whether I accomplished anything at all through my teaching. Did my students learn anything from me? I am uncertain. Back in those days, it sometimes seemed that the only tangible
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You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain. For the Lord will not leave unpunished him who takes his name in vain. –Exodus 20:7 & Deuteronomy 5:11– [A]nd holy is his name. –Luke 1:49– Whenever family counselor Gary Smalley speaks, he is always engaging,
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Whoever wishes to become great shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to become first among you shall be the slave of all. –Mark 10:43-44– I once had the privilege of living in a rectory with Father Joel Kiefer. Before being ordained a priest, he spent six years in
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