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Our Lady of Paris Reopens

OUR LADY OF PARIS REOPENS

On December 7, 2024, Paris Archbishop Laurent Ulrich knocked loudly three times on the door to Notre Dame cathedral with his staff, referred to as a crozier1.  Once the doors were opened according to the “Rite of the Open Door,” the organ played, the bell rang and the reopening ceremony began as the cathedral once again roared to life following the catastrophic fire of April 25, 2019. Our Lady of Paris stirred from her slumber. The cornerstone for Notre Dame cathedral was...

Preach the gospel to every creature

PREACHING THE GOSPEL TO EVERY CREATURE

  • January 1, 2025
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  • Faith

In Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark is speaking to his friend Horatio about his father’s ghost which Hamlet has seen with his very eyes. Horatio is skeptical, of course, while Hamlet appears to be as crazy as a loon throughout most of the play. We know it’s a ruse intended to discover the facts behind his father’s mysterious death. But Hamlet sobers up for a moment to say to his companion “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,...

WHERE DID GOD GO?

  • December 30, 2024
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  • Faith

In these dark days many people are asking “Where is God?” They wonder “Where did God go?” This is the question I’d like to address in this post. It is a most timely question as we welcome, or dread, a new year. No, God’s probably not under the bed. In some sense He’s everywhere, but that would not be the first place I would look. However, if He chose to, He could reveal Himself in the most unusual of all...

Prevailing in prayer

PREVAILING IN PRAYER

I have had a particularly difficult time with my prayer life the past few years.  I’m a Boomer in my mid-seventies with issues such as Parkinsonism from Agent Orange and PTSD from Vietnam.   I have been fighting stress (and cancer) along with all that has happened this past year, and I have my share of aches and pains which usually wait until I retire for the evening before they make themselves known.  Thank God for His love and mercy.  I’ve asked God for more...

The way things are

THE WAY THINGS ARE

This is a post on the human condition (conditio humana), something that philosophers and theologians such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche and (in our time) Hannah Arendt among others have wondered about and wrestled with themselves. By “others” I mean author John Steinbeck who likewise wondered about the way things are. And, once again, I’d like to anchor this essay to a passage in author John Steinbeck’s book “The Log From the Sea of Cortez.” This is an...

Invisible hands

INVISIBLE HANDS

  • December 3, 2024
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  • Faith

I had the good fortune, or perhaps, misfortune to teach macro and microeconomics for several sections many years ago. Whether you’ve ever taken it or not, the name “Adam Smith” should ring a bell. Adam Smith (1723-1790) was a Scottish economist and is often referred to as the “Father of Economics” or the “Father of Capitalism.” He was such a bedrock in economics, particularly because of his premier work “The Wealth of Nations” that it is impossible to not mention...

Approaching advent

APPROACHING ADVENT

We are privileged to live on a planet such as our Earth.  Of the several thousands of planets discovered over the past thirty years, most are gaseous and those few that have discernable hard surfaces appear to be rocky and barren, inhospitable for any one of a number of reasons.  Some scientists remain optimistic that there are still planets capable of sustaining life as we know it “out there” somewhere (to paraphrase Fox Mulder) but others wonder where they are if this...

S Little Time

SO LITTLE TIME

The holiday season is almost upon us.  Millions of Americans will be converging on airports around the country to fly home or to reach some other destination in time for Thanksgiving, Christmas and/or New Years (plus returning to their points of origin in time to resume work or classes the first week of January.)  Often, they are in a hurry, either to make a connecting flight or beat the rapidly approaching winter storm before the airport is socked in, or just to...

WONDERFULLY MADE

I was reading an interesting question on a discussion board the other night.  The board was a place where medical students and residents pose questions to each other. The question had to do with whether supplemental oxygen can address shortness of breath in cases when a patient has pump failure or COPD (assuming at the same time), the patient has adequate O2 arterial saturation.  In the event that some readers have wondered about this themselves, providing O2 per mask or cannula can not...

The Connecticut Shore

THE CONNECTICUT SHORE

Deena and I had an opportunity this past weekend to spend time on the Connecticut shore.  We stayed on the ocean’s edge in the Mercy by the Sea retreat center run by the Sisters of Mercy, a Catholic charity.  Deena and I are Protestants, but no one was checking ID’s.  It was a wonderful interlude where we could enjoy the peace of nature with the silent ambience of an organization that branched off centuries ago from the Carmelites.  This post is an account of our stay. THE...

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