One of the effects of original sin is that, as human beings, we tend to be self-centered, and often have an overly-exalted opinion of ourselves. For instance, when Napoleon was planning his great invasion of Russia in 1812, someone warned him, “Sir...
I once read an interesting philosophy volume called Ten Books that Screwed Up the World (MJF Books, 2008). The author, Professor Benjamin Wiker, identifies and describes those books he believes have had the worst influence on human history. The...
Two construction workers, Mack and Fred, were arguing about religion while working on a job one summer morning. Mack was a non-believer, while Fred had just been received into the Church at Easter. Mack sneered, “You don’t really believe all those...
Over thirty years ago an anonymous author wrote this reflection: “I was waiting for the subway train to come. It was bitter cold—near zero, with a windchill factor of 30 below zero. It was late at night, and a few of us stood inside a small shelter...
If we were to compile a list of the greatest comedy and entertainment teams of the past century, almost everyone would agree that George Burns and his wife Gracie Allen would be on that list. They had many classic routines together, in which Gracie...
The New York Times newspaper has an outdoors column called “Wood, Fish, and Stream,” and on one occasion the author of the column received a letter which said, “Would you tell where I could find a place to fish that is not more than five or six...
Once there was a little boy in church attending Mass with his mother. He was in a happy mood, and he was looking at all the people in the pews around him and smiling at them. He wasn’t doing anything wrong or creating a disturbance of any sort—he...
A poem was once written about a tragic situation in which five people unnecessarily froze to death around a campfire one winter. It was a bitterly cold night, and there was no shelter available. The fire was dying out and needed to be replenished...
In 1774—two years before our nation’s founding—a famous American woman was born in New York City; twenty years later she married another well-known New Yorker. Both were Episcopalians, the religion to which many prominent, upper-class Americans...
The Society of Jesus, the religious order known as the Jesuits, was founded in the 16th century by St. Ignatius of Loyola. After St. Ignatius himself, probably the best-known Jesuit was St. Francis Xavier, one of the greatest missionaries of all...
Fr Joseph Esper