I returned to the office this week and, gradually, to my usual schedule. I still won’t be speaking this weekend though. As it turned out, Tom ended up doing the entire series we are currently in (on the Old Testament) and will be wrapping up this weekend. I am very grateful to him for an […]
Regular readers of this blog will remember my promise to finish the book this summer (the book Tom and I have been working on for about a year, and talking about for a lot longer than that). I even vowed to stay here in Avalon until the project was complete. One anonymous commentator to the […]
It’s hot in Avalon. Too hot for the beach, or for much of anything else. Fortunately, the heat provides even more incentive for me to sit tight, in a cool spot, and continue to plow away at “the book.” Our working title, by the way, is called “Beyond Retail Religion.” This past week I rewrote […]
Today is Saturday and that means I have to go to church again. I could go tomorrow, but that is just prolonging the pain. I’ll go to the 5pm Saturday Mass today and get it over with. That’s what people do, don’t they? They go to get it over with. Why? Obligation, guilt, habit, concern […]
I began my annual vacation on Friday here in Avalon, New Jersey, joining a large group of extended family members. There were, on and off, about 25 to 30 of us. Interestingly on Sunday morning, this group of Italian-American, parochial school Catholics mostly all stayed away from the local church. What did they do instead? […]
As noted in the previous post, the number one project this summer is getting “the book” done, a project my associate Tom Corcoran and I have been working on for the last year. It will be only a little book (about 60,000 words) but one that tells our story and what happened to us and […]
Earlier this year we had an independent team of pastoral leaders visit our parish and give us a frank assessment of what they experienced. Largely we got good grades. But we were shocked, I mean really shocked to read their assessment that beyond the pastor and his associate, there was no ability to articulate […]
Father’s Day is the unofficial start of summer around here. This weekend we will be introducing our summer schedule (which might just become our regular schedule too, so let us know what you think). This weekend Chris Wesley will be joining me again as we look at fatherhood from his perspective as a new dad. […]
When the day of Pentecost came, the apostles were all together… suddenly a sound like the blowing of a mighty wind came from heaven… all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit…Peter stood up and addressed the crowd… “Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you, and you with the help […]
We are all set for the third week of our series all about the next generation, “Generation iY” as author Tim Elmore calls them: basically, people born in the last twenty years. This Sunday we also celebrate the Ascension; the Bible tells us that 40 days after his resurrection Jesus was taken up to heaven in […]
