Ordinary Old Catholic Me

Don't Mistake This for Home

I suppose I cannot quite get away from the theme of pain and suffering. This last ten months may not be the worst history has ever had, in fact, it isn't, but it is arguably a different kind of tumultuous from that to which we in the United States are used. Not since the Civil War have we been touched with such crises and discord. The world and national events are in such a coalescence as to create a sense of immediate danger of eradicating our material and psychological well being. And then a tweet from a rare professing Christian in Hollywood, Patricia Heaton, reminds me that not only do we feel like we are not home in this world, we weren't meant to feel that way. Why? Because it is not home. The transformed pain and suffering, transformed in meaning, not in experience, is what we must endure to get to our true home. 

Improv to Improve with Tiffani Sierra

A marvelous conversation with Tiffani Sierra, the Chief INSPIRATIONAL Officer of her own company, "Improv It Up!" on how improvisation is not just for people who are in the acting business. It provides healing release and confidence to anyone who wants to experience it. The workshops she offers are for anyone, she's even worked with Catholic priests and seminarians have taken her classes to make it more natural and comfortable to bring the Word of God to the people. Tiffani tells us also how her faith brought her through really difficult times in conjunction with her life's work as a founding facilitator for "Improv It Up!" 

The Offer It Up Dilemma

2021. A New Year. An old dilemma, for this Catholic at least. The news is even worse so the freshness of the New Year seems already gone. What to do? We used to hear the phrase, "Offer it Up" as kids to counter the sense of futility. Join the suffering, the pain and joy of our days, to Christ's suffering which ultimately transformed suffering itself. I am hearing the phrase again in Catholic circles again. Easier said than done, no? Reflections on the difficuilty.

What Will Put "New" into this New Year

The old year, 2020, has been a bear. There is little to indicate that the new one, 2021, will be much better. That is a different feeling from the usual experience we have of the New Year. I have been as down in the dumps as many of us could be given the pressures from the outside. What, if anything, at least for the Christian, the Catholic Christian, from my perspective of things, might make this transition into 2021 "new" in a way that is healthy and potentially provide peace and happiness and, when you come down to it, the salvation of my soul and the souls of the rest of us? It took a while for me in my consideration of this podcast, but I think I found it, the Rosary. Call it a backup lifeline to Christ, after the Eucharist, which is our primary lifeline. Well, that's what I think it is. 

This Ordinary Catholic's Thoughts on Christmas 2020

Christmas is next week. It won't look like any that I have, or you have experienced, in the last let's say 70 years. I have been struggling with that. Maybe you have too. So, that's what this episode is about, tussling with the two Christmases, the secular version, the religious version and trying to keep the Babe who broke into Time in focus. 

The Why Me Syndrome

So if I believe that it was the suffering Christ who redeemed the world, how can I possible ask "Why Me?"  But there you are. I do. Thoughts on the subject of pain and suffering. And how "Why Me?" misses the point. 

The Plain Truth?

We are divided in this country, in this world, on pretty much every subject. In a recent episode I questioned the support of Catholic Clerical leaders, even implicitly, of a politician who not only advocates but is manifestly, actively seeking to make or keep abortion as the law of the land. I am certainly not alone in this concern. Far more theologically competent prelates than I have tried to raise the alarm. But they are considered somehow, radical. How can that be given the plain statements by the Church, still purportedly on "paper"? And how can it be that half of the Catholics in this country would also believe that anyone who questions such a politician, in this case the Democrat candidate, is cruel and inhuman? And yet, so it is. Our family. Our good friends. 
But if the proportional argument takes sway here, that a Joe Biden's other platforms are so good that they outweigh his active pursuit of abortion on demand, then Catholic teaching seems to have no authority in any other arena. All things can be given the proportionality treatment. 
And the plain truth bites the dust. 
 
 

McIntyre House: The Small But Mighty Residential Drug and Alcohol Rehab that Needs Your Help

Part Two of our talk with Brian Hardin, Executive Director of McIntyre House, a Residential Drig and Alcohol Rehabilitation home for men. Keeping a small place like this going is always an effort of love, but especially in these days of Covid 19, when fundraising is even less easy than the norm. Some of its alumni had a great idea. The Twelve Days of McIntyre House, a holiday celebration. Brian and I talk about it. And how you can help. McIntyreHouse.org. 

McIntyre House: A Small but Mighty Residential Alcohol and Drug Program I

There is a lot of need out there for men afflicted by drug and alcohol addiction. There are some big organizations that tackle the problem, but there are also the small ones, like McIntyre House, co-founded in 1997 by a Catholic Priest, Monsignor Jeremiah Murphy, and his friend, Harley Noel, that have saved lives. The small places don't get a lot of publicity. But they are indispensable to the society, and are created out of the Catholic sense of loving our neighbors and helping those in need. Join me in this first part of a two part episode on McIntyre House, in Los Angeles, with its Executive Director, Brian Hardin.  

Should I Stay Or Should I Leave. . .Redux

The world presses on me, on us, from every side, and even the Church leaders seem to be in step with the secular more than with what we have understood to be the Faith. It was bad a few months ago, as the lockdown began, but it seems that with every passing month, it has become more a challenge to remain a Catholic. I need to vent. How 'bout you? But the bottom line is always the same, Jesus Christ is the Church, and how can I leave Him?