From the bulletin for The Resurrection of the Lord (2026 April 05) April 5 - Easter Sunday During the Chrism Mass at the Cathedral this past Thursday, we sang an old favorite: Psalm 89. It’s a personal favorite because it was also sung at my priestly ordination (and mentions David). It’s always moving when two thousand voices are singing in unison: “The goodness of the Lord! The goodness of the Lord! Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord!”  In context, we are contempla

From the bulletin for Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion (2026 March 29) 3/29 - Parish School of Prayer, Pt 23: Passion Tide The liturgy always seeks to lead us into the mystery of Christ’s work of our redemption, in such a way that this work is accomplished in our lives, through our participation in it. In Him!  In truth, these “mysteries” have always been at work in God’s plan of salvation. Though they are fulfilled in the life, passion, death, and resurrection of Our Lord,

From the bulletin for The Fifth Sunday of Lent (2026 March 22) March 22 - 5th Sunday Last week we looked at donuts. Particularly, the marvelous manner by which investing in those “frosted energy wheels” has so helped to incorporate and build up the living stones of our parish. With the capital campaign underway, I should also say a word about the more enduring investments which also cry out for our attention, that we might better receive and gather that growing body of Christ

From the bulletin for The Fourth Sunday of Lent (2026 March 15) March 15 - 4th Lent Last week I shared some encouraging figures regarding some special almsgiving efforts that members of the parish have undertaken. Just as “deep calls on deep” when it comes to more causes for encouragement around the parish.  In the summer of 2019, there was a “town hall meeting” at the home of a parish family in the wake of the school closure that spring. Concerned parishioners felt moved to

From the bulletin for The Third Sunday of Lent (2026 March 08) March 8 - 3rd Lent “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Thus spoke Winston Churchill, who lived through a crisis or two. In this case (only?), the Holy Spirit outdoes even the politicians. As the parable of the prodigal son shows, God, in His love, will often permit His children to fall into crises and pig-sties of all sorts in hopes that we will come to our senses, return to Him, and/or rise to the challenge wi

From the bulletin for The Second Sunday of Lent (2026 March 01) Lord’s Day: A Deeper Dive Sacred Scripture is meant to be read more like a poem than the news. Its content needs to be unpacked to be appreciated, otherwise its richness will be lost on us.  Take the First Reading this Sunday: God commands Abram and obeys. Pretty straightforward, right? But when you dig in, questions arise. In the previous chapter of Genesis, we learn that Abram’s father Terah had already made de

From the bulletin for The First Sunday of Lent (2026 February 22) Feb 22 - 1st Sunday Lent In the Pledge of Allegiance, we recognize this land as “one nation, under God, indivisible, with justice for all.” We are forced, of course, to acknowledge that is more aspiration than reality: we live in a time when the oneness and indivisibility of the USA are under a severe test. And the degree to which the nation is or ever has been under truly the dominion of the God of Heaven, and

From the bulletin for The Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (2026 February 15) Feb 15 - 6th Sunday Remember Lent? Well, it’s back. Your favorite time of year: when the natural world is thawing out and the world invites you to rejoice and frolic, but the Church makes you punish yourself by being sad and finding ways to suffer more than you already do. So you can appreciate Easter all the more! It may feel like that. But in truth, Lent is about learning how to rejoice and take deli

From the bulletin for The Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (2026 February 08) Feb 8 - 5th Sunday OT There is a heartening billboard northbound on Highway 52 that encourages the “red and the blue”, the “left and the right” to talk, for a change. Billboards rarely cheer my heart. But this one did. Yet it also raises the doubt: where will such conversations occur? True spaces of public forum are rare in our society.  In last week’s column I expressed the wish that St. Mark’s would

From the bulletin for The Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (2026 February 01) Feb 1 - 4th Sunday OT You know the feeling: the slightly sickening sensation, with a touch of vertigo, when you begin to realize that another person with whom you had been friendly has very different political views from your own. Many are experiencing that sensation these days, “when the thoughts of many hearts are being revealed” (cf. Lk 2:35). Indeed, it’s happening even here  at St. Mark’s, among

From the bulletin for The Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (2026 January 25) Jan 25 - Third Sunday OT “Coherence is the martyrdom of our time.”  For a Christian today to be faithful in word and deed to the principles of our Faith, a heroic degree of courage is needed. Such a Christian will find “no place to rest his head” in the world. Goldilocks eventually found a bed that fit her. But a coherent Christian in every age will find no ideology, political party, newspaper, pundit,

From the bulletin for The Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (2026 January 18) Parish School of Prayer, Pt 22: Praying for Peace “Whenever I want to know what is going on in the world, I just pick up a copy of the Book of Revelation.” I’ve shared that quote from Leon Bloy before. I share it again because its insight is timely: any day of the year, the Book of Revelation illuminates what is ever transpiring on this earth better than any periodical.  Which is not at all to say that

From the bulletin for The Baptism of the Lord (2026 January 11) Jan 12 - Baptism of the Lord With a foot in both the season of Christmas and Ordinary Time, the Solemnity of the Baptism of Our Lord marks the public inauguration of His saving mission. On the one hand, it’s a revelation-event, of something that has been true from all eternity: the Father acknowledges Jesus as His well-beloved Son, the apple of His eye, as it were. On the other, there is something new here: in Hi

From the bulletin for The Feast of The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph (2025 December 28) Dec 28 - Holy Family The Feast of the Holy Family is a special one for me and my vocational story. It was on this day in 2011 that I had a fateful session of spiritual direction at the St. Mark’s rectory. I came armed with what I thought were very good arguments to defeat any suggestion of the priesthood for me (which I intuited the then-pastor was going to make… it was our second

From the First Sunday in Advent (2025 November 30) Nov 30 - Advent 1 In today’s First Reading Isaiah envisions “all the nations” streaming towards God’s temple on Zion: “In days to come … many peoples shall come and say: ‘Come, let us climb the LORD's mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths" (Is 2:2-3). In the past weeks, we have had occasion to recall now that “those days” have come, the Lord’s mountain is

From the bulletin for The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (2025 November 23) Nov 23 - Christ the King Some speak of “separation of church and state.” The Bible, in contrast, speaks of an intermingling of “wheat and tares” both within the Church (see 1 Jn 2:19) and in the world (see Acts 18:10). There, the relevant separation is between those who gather with Christ and those who scatter (Mt 12:30); those who are “of the truth” (Jn 18:37) and those who

From the bulletin for Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (2025 November 16) Nov 15 - 33rd Sunday The end is nigh.  Mirroring the maple trees on Wilder Street, the liturgical year now blossoms with an apocalyptic flourish as we approach the cycle’s end. Having started it with our Advent expectations and Yuletide rejoicings, then marching through our Lenten campaign of Christian soldiering and solemn Paschal celebrations, and now completing our admiration of Our Lord’s active

From the bulletin for The Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome (2025 November 09) Nov 9: Dedication of SJL In the Office of Readings of the day on which I write (Thursday the 6th), the Psalms contains two passages that echo one another:  Remember, Lord, the shortness of my life and how frail you have made the sons of men. What man can live and never see death? Who can save himself from the grasp of the grave?  (Ps 89:48-49) Our life is over like a sigh. Our

From the bulletin for The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (2025 November 02) Nov 2: All Souls The landscape of American English and its cultural expressions are littered with stark disjunctives. “Liberty or death!” (Patrick Henry). “California or bust!” (1849 gold rushers). “God or nothing!” (2015 book by Cardinal Sarah). “Ride or die!” (1950s motorcyclists and early-2000s gangsta rappers).  Yet we Christians live our lives in the shadow of an even starker either/o

From the bulletin for The Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (2025 October 26) Parish School of Prayer, Pt 21: On the Rosary Again (and Again) My little nieces and nephews are finally getting comfortable around their Uncle David. I know this because during some recent family gatherings, they were demanding that I read to them some of their favorite storybooks. It's fascinating that, though they know these books by heart, they delight to hear them read again and again. They rej