‘Give us this day our daily bread’
“‘Give us this day our daily bread’” by Fr. Thomas for Texas Catholic. My ideal translation of this phrase would be “Give us our ‘supersubstantial’ bread today.” That would sound gloriously awkward at Mass, and ‘supersubstantial’ would be a liturgical...
Continuum Spring 2025
Contents News & Notes The Impossible Dream Teaching God in Many Ways In Memoriam Sports Floating an Idea
Freedom and the rise of contemporary gambling
“Freedom and the rise of contemporary gambling” by Fr. John for The Texas Catholic. Gambling is growing in our country — and quickly. My impression is that we have work to do to be informed about what is happening and to let ourselves be formed by what the...
Thy Kingdom Come
The more I reflect on the petitions of the Our Father, the more I’m convinced that I have no idea what I’m praying when I mumble those words multiple times every day.
The current object of my loving mystification is “Thy kingdom come.” In an effort to be slightly less intimidated by this vast and marvelous petition, I will arrange my musings as responses to the time-honored journalistic questions.
Lessons learned in a monastery
One of the most important rooms in a monastery, after the church, is the chapter room. This is the place where monks meet to do various things as a community: hear an exhortation from their abbot; listen to a spiritual reading (often a chapter from “The Rule of St. Benedict”); deliberate and vote on the important material and spiritual questions that arise in a monastery, such as who should be the abbot, whether to welcome a young monk as a permanent member of the community through solemn profession, and how best to structure their lives to promote God’s purpose.