The Narthex

“My Three Sons” was a 1960s hit sitcom about a widower raising three boys. I suspect many Catholics who heard Sunday’s Gospel would have preferred a parable about the man’s three sons. But Jesus gave us only two. In Christ’s parable, the first son is told to go work in…

I recently penned an essay on the threats imperiling the existence of Catholic colleges. I identified four: demographics, costs, people’s perceptions of the need for college degrees, and AI. Not all of them carry the same weight. For example, how AI may affect college graduates (especially in terms of entry-level…

Saturday, September 19, is the feast of Our Lady of LaSalette. The Blessed Mother appeared 180 years ago, in 1846, to two children in the French Alps. Her message was simple, which is perhaps what I find most attractive about it. She lamented three things: that people didn’t pray, that…

A recent New York Times article was one of those pieces that make you think -- not necessarily because its conclusions are profound but because its questions are. The author of “The Most Promising Worlds Beyond Our Solar System” writes about research documenting the existence of planets orbiting other stars…

In last Sunday’s First Reading, God tells the prophet Ezekiel that he is to be “watchman” of Israel. He is to watch and warn Israel of moral dangers: “If I tell the wicked, ‘O wicked one, you shall surely die’ and you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked…

South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham was laid to rest with a funeral July 28 at the Washington National Cathedral. Recently, some Catholic bishops have issued new regulations for funerals in their dioceses. This post isn’t a critique of Graham's funeral. Rather, it affords some interesting insights into the theology of…

It is a principle of Catholic liturgical theology that Mass is always offered in communion with the Pope and the local bishop. It’s why both are mentioned in the liturgy. It’s also why public celebration of the Mass is regulated by the bishop, who can restrict faculties. It’s why the…

The Opening Prayer for the Eighteenth Sunday (A) in Ordinary Time asks that the Lord “may restore what you have created and keep safe what you have restored.” Let’s focus on the verb “restore.” "Restore” suggests something has lost some original characteristic, whose restoration recovers something valuable about that thing.…

Sunday’s First Reading was Solomon’s prayer for wisdom and God’s generous response, pleased at what the young king had asked for. Wisdom in the Biblical tradition is not about knowledge or erudition; Solomon was not asking to be an Einstein. Wisdom is about how to live rightly, which in Israel’s…

The New York Times likes occasionally to run articles about “gray divorce,” i.e., the phenomenon of people 50+ splitting up. Case in point: its approving commentary on June 22, “Older Adults Are No Longer Staying in ‘Empty-Shell’ Marriages” (linked below). It reads, "[N]early 40 percent of divorces today occur between…

“Even all the hairs of your head are counted” (Mt 10:30). The above verse about the divine follicle census appeared in Sunday’s Gospel. It shows up in the middle of a larger passage about proper perspectives on fear. Human beings are often afraid and, in many cases, they should be.…

My son Karol graduated high school May 26. Like parents around the country, I’m proud of him, and I thank God that He let me at least reach the point I could deposit Karol on the threshold of adulthood. I pray He let me carry him through the next stage…

Piety is both a moral virtue and a gift of the Holy Spirit. Piety allows one to recognize relationships and where one fits in those relationships. With regard to God, it enables the person to recognize that God is Creator and he is a creature or, to put it bluntly,…

As the Church prepares to close the 2026 Easter Season with Evening Prayer II next Sunday, I'll share some final reflections on this juncture in the liturgical year. Liturgical Anomaly The “pastoral” shift of the Solemnity of the Ascension from the 40th day after Easter (i.e., Ascension Thursday) to displacing…

Today is Karol Wojtyła’s/St. John Paul II’s 126th birthday. He was born on Tuesday, May 18, 1920. It is hard to believe that, after a 26-year pontificate supplemented by eight of the Ratzinger pontificate, the teaching and focus of the Wojtyła papacy as a lens to view the proper implementation…