Friday, June 14, 201900In a culture so saturated with sexuality as our own, among the most provocative lines of the Gospel is surely the following: some “have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (19:12).
Tuesday, May 14, 201900Recently, we read a gospel passage that can make people cringe: the story of “doubting”Thomas (cf. Jn 20:19-31). This passage is, sadly, often interpreted as though it were contrasting reason, on the one hand, with faith (or gullibility), on the other. For example, one very influential atheist, Richard Dawkins, refers to the story of...
Thursday, April 11, 20190170What 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, 2019054A 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, 2019032Do 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, 2018028
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, 2018070By 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, 2018059By 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, 2018056This 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.
