Thursday, April 11, 20190121What does it mean to forgive? Is forgiveness essentially a negative and cancelling force, that is, something that ignores an injury? Or is it a positive and creative force, that is, something that adds to life? I think it’s probably both, but my sense is that we typically think only of the negative side. For example, it is popular to...
How many words, songs and rhymes are stored in your memory? If I say, “Take me out to the…” or “Oops I…” you could probably finish the two lines (“Take me out to the ballgame” and “Oops I did it again”). We have an immense world of words filling our interior lives, and many of them we made little effort to memorize....
Thursday, February 14, 2019033A few weeks ago, Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Farmers Branch hosted “Treasures of the Church,” a traveling exhibition of sacred relics from the Vatican. By all appearances, it was a wonderful event.
Wednesday, January 16, 2019027Do you want a great book for our ideological times? Do you want to be challenged, no matter where you sit on the ideological spectrum between Left and Right? Well, then I’ve got a book for you: In Defense of Nature: The Catholic Unity of Environmental, Economic and Moral Ecology by Benjamin Wiker.
Friday, December 14, 2018021
By Father John Bayer
Special to The Texas Catholic
In the span of about two weeks I received 15 cards encouraging me as a priest. One person, who signed herself as “Your spiritual mother,” wrote, “May you be strong against temptations. Take heart as we face the current scandals in the priesthood.” Another wrote, “To...
Wednesday, October 31, 2018063By Father John Bayer
Special to The Texas Catholic
I enjoy seeing religious wisdom vindicated by modern science. Let me tell you a brief story about myself.
A few years ago, I was basically crippled by food allergies and chronic pain in my feet, the latter apparently the result of an injury I sustained while exercising. Ever since...
Thursday, September 6, 2018048By Father John Bayer
Special to The Texas Catholic
I recently saw The Greatest Showman, which is an enjoyable movie-musical about the Barnum & Bailey Circus. The music and dancing are really fun, and the main moral of the story is one I wholeheartedly accept: happiness is found only in true love, and not in wealth, popularity or...
Friday, May 25, 2018044This year, on May 21, we celebrated a new feast, the “Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church.” About three months ago, Pope Francis decreed that this feast, which since its creation in 1975 had been only a votive mass, should be celebrated by the whole Church every year on the Monday after Pentecost.
Sunday, April 29, 2018042One of my favorite musicians, Audrey Assad, once suggested we should be praying “with” the martyrs and not just “for” them. In this way, she introduced a very beautiful song, “Even Unto Death,” which was inspired by the execution of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya in February, 2015. She says she wrote it “to adopt the prayers...
Saturday, March 31, 2018027Lent is almost over, and many of us are already evaluating our Lenten resolutions. How did you do? Did you keep your resolutions? Let me suggest a few things to keep in mind as we reflect on our resolutions.
