Converting Slaps to Kisses

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: ) Sunday’s first reading recalls when Moses received the law upon which all of God’s chosen people would be raised: “Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy. ……

What Rhymes with Obdurate? We Do.

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: ) Our most popular songs celebrate humanity’s most comfortable virtues—love, chief among them. Our sins don’t get as much poetic attention because, let’s face it, they don’t feel good. But leave…

Movie Review Extra: “Living”

(For the audio version of this review, please visit: ) The movie “Living” is the story of a dying man who’s born again—but not in the Christian sense. However, his story has many of the elements of Christ’s parables: a…

The Light that Fills the Heart’s Vacuum

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: ) Aristotle taught that nature abhors a vacuum—that every space in nature needs to be filled with something.  Like light, maybe? Well, way before Aristotle’s time, humans showed an amazing knack…

Exposing Evil’s Banality

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: ) Some scriptures and psalms are addressed to victims.  A couple of those psalms, like the ones selected for this Sunday’s Mass (Ps 146:6-7, 8-9, 9-10) tell us God seeks justice…

BIC Movie Review: How I Would Remake M3ghan

Tonight I took my family to see M3ghan, a new sci-fi/horror movie. It’s really a modern take on the Frankenstein story. A female toy engineer conceptualizes and engineers a doll programmed with artificial intelligence that eventually evolves into self-awareness. The…

I AM at this World’s Curtain Call

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: ) Our parish’s “Deacon Lou” started a recent homily with an inspiring quote: “What we are is God’s gift to us; what we become is our gift to God.”  If you…

A World beyond Death’s Horizon

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: ) In this Sunday’s gospel reading from John (Jn 1:29-34), he quotes John the Baptist telling of a divine calling to testify to the presence among us of a savior he…

Celebrating the Epiphany with Dick Van Dyke

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: ) For the world’s most powerful governments, Jesus raised their estimation of Bethlehem and Nazareth from little nothings to great threats. The threat came from many of the citizens of those…