In the days when Christ Jesus was in the flesh, he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death… (Hebrews 5:7) This powerful statement underlines forcefully how close to our flesh, to our...
A young nurse named Leslie once witnessed something that, according to her, defied medical science. A patient was told by a hospital surgeon that his badly infected leg needed to be amputated—but a few hours later, the doctor discovered that...
Scientists do strange things when they are bored. Years ago, in the height of the CSI television craze, my lab mate and I would challenge each other between experiments to come up with novel ways to “get rid of a body” without ever being...
Ash Wednesday is always a sobering experience. The solemn words, Remember you are dust and to dust you will return, vividly reminds us of our mortality. It is also a simple reminder that we all owe God a death, thanks to the loss of Eden. In...
“Pray as much as you can for the dying. By your entreaties, obtain for them trust in My mercy, because they have most need of trust, and have it the least. Be assured that the grace of eternal salvation for certain souls in their final moments...
In a recent Sunday Gospel reading, Jesus reminded us that the gate into heaven is a narrow one. (Luke 13) The reading made me uncomfortable. The Church tells us that sin requires an element of knowing that we are doing it. The Gospels this summer...
Many years ago, a young Monsignor was laying on his hospital gurney, only partly sedated, when his mentor, the former Archbishop of St. Louis, approached him on the way to the operating room. He devoutly said: Richard, let us pray to St. Joseph for...
Each Good Friday, we Christians ask ourselves: How would we have behaved? Would we have been among the faithful women remaining as Jesus breathed his last? Or would we, like many of Jesus’ closest friends, have fled the scene? While none of us know...
