One Catholic Life Blog

St. Joseph

St. Joseph: The Saint of Little Things

St. Joseph reminds us that it’s the little things that matter — doing an honest day’s work for an honest day’s wages; reading to children at bedtime; preparing dinner for the family. The quiet, hidden life of St. Joseph stands in contrast to our culture’s obsession with celebrity. Fr. Jim Martin comments on the life of this humble model of faith from his DVD Who Cares about the Saints?:

Bishop Cupich receives a gift from Pope Benedict

Learning about Church from Bishop Cupich on Facebook

Our bishop, Bishop Blase Cupich, is visiting Rome this week for an ad limina visit. In a first for the Diocese of Spokane, he’s using Facebook to share his journey with the rest of us. It’s been a great learning experience for me and for my students. Each morning I wake up and check Facebook to see what I can share with the 8th graders  during Religion class. After morning prayer and attendance, I bring up the diocesan Facebook page on the screen and we see what’s new...

Beauty by John O'Donohue

Emptiness that Haunts the Heart: A Caution for the Digital Age

Is the digital age making it more difficult for us to recognize, appreciate and encounter beauty? Traditionally, journey was a rhythm of three forces: time, self and space. Now the digital virus has truncated time and space. Marooned on each instant, we have forfeited the practice of patience, the attention to emergence and delight in the Eros of discovery. The self has become anxious for what the next instant might bring. This greed for destination obliterates the journey. The digital desire for the single instant schools the mind...

Jill’s Place

Every neighborhood has one: the Kool-Aid house. The one place where all the kids hang out, play, and laugh. Schools have them too, Kool-Aid classrooms, where kids congregate before or after school to chat with the teacher; the place to which graduates return. Jill’s classroom was the Kool-Aid house of our school. Day after day, students stopped in to chat, surrounding her desk as she sat in her motorized scooter. Whenever I saw an All Saints graduate return for a visit, I knew exactly where they were heading:...

Nebula

Quote of the Day: The Storm Center of the Universe

“For when we talk about confirmation our conversation is really about baptism; when we are dealing with baptism we are discoursing about Christian initiation; when we are into initiation we are face to face with conversion in Jesus Christ dead and rising; and when we are into conversion in Jesus Christ dead and rising we are at the storm center of the universe.” – Aidan Kavanagh, OSB

Charles Dickens

Time to Go to That There Burying-Ground: Dickens’ 200th Birthday

Ralph Fiennes reads a moving excerpt from Bleak House as Prince Charles lays a wreath of flowers on Dickens’ grave. Today the world remembers Charles Dickens, born on this day two hundred years ago. I have a great fondness for Dickens’s works, especially David Copperfield and Hard Times. One of Dickens’ particular qualities was the ability to make one laugh and shudder at the same time. As Chesterton says, “These two primary dispositions of Dickens, to make the flesh creep and to make the sides ache, were a...

Ben-Hur

SQPN Movie Panel Launches

The good folks at SQPN, always looking for new ways to network, have launched an initiative they call the SQPN Movie Panel. Here’s how it works: Each week, SQPN will suggest a movie to watch, based on a theme for the month. The first theme is “Oscar Month,” and the movies are Titanic, Ben-Hur, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, and West Side Story. Watch the movie and join in on the conversation, either on Twitter @moviepanel or on the SQPN Facebook page. Find out more...

Cardinal-elect Dolan and President Obama

The US Bishops Respond to the White House’s Attempt to Clarify HHS “Confusion”

On February 1, 2012, Cecilia Muñoz wrote a White House blog post intended to “make sure you have the facts,” about the ill-considered HHS ruling regarding religious institutions and health care plans. Yesterday the USCCB responded to that post with its own statement, which follows here in full: The Obama administration, to justify its widely criticized mandate for contraception and sterilization coverage in private health plans, has posted a set of false and misleading claims on the White House blog (“Health Reform, Preventive Services, and Religious Institutions,” February...

A Day Made of Glass 2

A Day Made of Glass 2: Is This the Future?

Today Corning released a sequel to last year’s viral video A Day Made of Glass. This year they’re focusing more on the benefits to society, rather than on how glass might be used to improve the workplace and home environment. You’ll see classrooms, hospitals, and state parks of the future–or at least how Corning hopes the future will look. It’s a beautiful video, though it makes me wonder if everyone will get to enjoy a future like this, or just those above a particular income level. Here’s the...