(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: http://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Mass-Blog-for-the-3rd-Sunday-in-Advent-2022.mp3) Follow the news regularly and you can’t help but realize we live in an imperfect world. Imperfection, a new book by Telmo Pievani, professor of biology at the University of Padua, Italy, celebrates our imperfections, arguing that perfection is not only impossible, but that imperfection […]

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: http://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Mass-Blog-for-the-2nd-Sunday-in-Advent-2022.mp3) Baby Boomers can remember when TV could offer programming with messages that seemed almost scriptural. Take Kung Fu, for example. It dealt with the adventures of an exiled shaolin monk trying to reconnect with his family roots in America of the late 1800s. In each […]

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: http://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Mass-Blog-for-the-Solemnity-of-Jesus-Christ-King-of-the-Universe-2022.mp3) England has a new king. It took the death of a queen to make that happen. This proves the fleeting nature of human royalty as expressed in the Book of Proverbs (Proverbs 27:24): For wealth does not last forever, nor even a crown from age […]

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: http://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Mass-Blog-for-the-33rd-Sunday-in-Ordinary-Time-2022.mp3) Anyone close to a member of the greatest generation has heard the lecture. How as a child they walked to and from school uphill both ways. How, during the Great Depression, they ate scraps they scrounged themselves—and liked it. How they worked several jobs to […]

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: http://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Mass-Blog-for-the-32nd-Sunday-in-Ordinary-Time-2022.mp3) We’re well into fall, and the Hero banners that have been hanging from our city’s light poles have been taken down for their ceremonial presentation to the families of the loved ones they represent. These are tributes to the war veterans who made a home […]

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: http://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Mass-Blog-for-the-31st-Sunday-in-Ordinary-Time-2022.mp3) In Christ’s day, tax collectors were to sin what prophets were to virtue. In the succeeding 2000 years, several professions have been added to both sides of that moral balance. One is Hollywood stars. More on that later. As we see in Sunday’s gospel reading […]

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: http://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Mass-Blog-for-the-30th-Sunday-in-Ordinary-Time-2022.mp3) Zen masters, philosophers and even clergy compare their search for wisdom to a desire for “The Holy Grail.” In fact Parsifal may be one of their heroes. This is the naive boy from King Arthur’s legend whose mother tried keeping him safe by isolating him […]

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: http://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Mass-Blog-for-the-29th-Sunday-in-Ordinary-Time-2022.mp3) There’s a phenomenon known to science geeks that not only helps us to see movies, but also helps us understand how God wants to view our life stories. It involves persistence of vision. We’re invited to be as persistent inviting God into our lives as […]

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: http://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mass-Blog-for-the-28th-Sunday-in-Ordinary-Time-2022.mp3) A preacher recently encouraged his congregation to adopt a spirit of service. How do you do that? Easy. Discernment. Through discernment, he explained, the Holy Spirit draws us into service on behalf of others. It begins with prayer to help us recognize situations offering us […]