A new Church year brings with it opportunities to continue growing in faith and service to our Lord I often come away from a wake service for one of our beloved dead with the question popping in my head, “what’s next?” For many folks it involves several months of settling …
Once upon a time: Events have ‘wonderful effect on our lives’
A 1913 expo and the Eucharistic Congress both celebrated the past while looking ahead to the future A once-in-a-lifetime experience is usually good for us. Our recent Eucharistic Congress is an example of a quite rare event that can have a wonderful effect on our lives. Such exhibitions help us …
Once upon a time: Following the Catholic Church in real time
Faithful now have almost instant access to developments as information dirt trail turns into a superhighway My, how times have changed!” Grandmothers say this to granddaughters as a preface to negative remarks about ladies’ fashion that follow. Fathers may preface some remarks about wonderful improvements in the whole arena of …
Once upon a time: Understanding the Eucharistic Congress
Signature event will highlight the Diocese of Knoxville’s Silver Jubilee celebration that begins in September I know that many of us are busy promoting the Diocesan Eucharist Congress and Family Weekend at the Sevierville Convention Center Sept. 13-14, 2013. It will certainly be a highlight celebration of the Silver Jubilee …
Once upon a time: Giving thanks for the month of Mary
The number of parishes dedicated to our Blessed Mother illustrates Diocese of Knoxville’s devotion Another month of May for which to give thanks to God. May, the month of Mary, is in our Northern Hemisphere a spring-time month during which Mother Nature seems to join with her beautiful flora to …
Once upon a time: World is witness to new, improved papal election
Holy Spirit at work as selection of pontiffs for over a century has been a smooth process without controversy Wow! Habemus papam! Awesome to today’s ninth-grade student, the election of Pope Francis in March seemed quite different from that student’s experience in primary school. To that same individual’s parents and …
Once upon a time: Holy Mother Church blessed with great popes
The best pontiffs have made significant contributions through teaching, acts of initiative, wisdom I love popes, especially holy and great ones with which Holy Mother Church, the body of Christ, has been blessed during the modern times of pontificates beginning with Blessed Pius IX (1846-1878) and continuing to the present: …
Once upon a time: Many people are ‘foundational to our story’
Popes, bishops, priests, deacons, brothers, sisters and laypeople all ‘give dimension to this Church of ours’ The month of January, traditionally our coldest month of the year, was the last month to have her calendar filled from New Year’s Day until the feast of St. John Bosco (the 31st). The …
Once upon a time: In praise of improvements for celebrating Mass
Times have changed since ‘midnight Masses’ at 5 a.m., 100-degree choir lofts, long Eucharistic fasts I have served in several parishes by now, but in only one of them do I find the cavities cut in the pews for hinges to the wee doors that once were affixed to every …
Once upon a time: A special glory of its own
East Tennessee Catholics are invested in The Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem By Monsignor Xavier Mankel The Holy Land is called Holy because so many, many holy things happened there. Abraham would have sacrificed his son, Isaac, there (Mount Moriah). Three temples were erected there (Solomon’s was …
Holy year is a chance to grow in faith, hope, love
Year of Faith is a time to reflect on Church’s path to where we are, look ahead to where we are growing How many times do we think to ourselves or even say aloud, “Been there, done that,” to indicate our relative lack of interest in something? The Church kept …
Reflecting on the work of bishops
Lessons from great churchmen of the past bode well for U.S. Catholic Church in the future We had a priest in the Nashville diocese, Father Aaron T. Gildea, who was ordained to the sacred priesthood on June 8, 1929. Many of our readers have never heard about him as he …
