Tag: Longenecker
6 Good Reasons to Abstain from Meat on Fridays, Even Beyond Lent
Go on, be a “fish eater” on Fridays; it will help your whole week A Protestant friend who lived in Philadelphia once said, “You know why those Catholics eat fish on Friday? They’re all Italians, and the Italians have the fish market downtown. So they got the Italian pope to make that rule so they… Read More ›
Angels, Shepherds and Sheer Joy
The presence of the angels in Advent is the presence of the supernatural pressing in on the natural. Angels crowd the Advent story, and their presence culminates in the throng of angels who appear to the shepherds on the hill outside Bethlehem. The angelic presences pushing in on the ordinary world come first to the… Read More ›
Francis, Fatima and the End of the World
Does the Holy Father know something we don’t? Aleteia. At the end of April it was confirmed that Pope Francis will travel to Fatima for the one hundredth anniversary of the Marian apparitions, and it is rumored that he will use the occasion to canonize the two youngest seers, Jacinta and Francisco Marto. This week,… Read More ›
Good Man. Good Monk. Good Beer.
Father Longenecker talks to Brother Augustine Wilmeth about his life as a monk I first met Brother Augustine Wilmeth when he was one of the students where I served as chaplain. As a convert, he was intensely interested not only in his new Catholic faith but in the more traditional expressions of life and worship…. Read More ›
Introducing Atheists to God
The philosophical proofs of Gods’ existence are a helpful first step The first battleground for any evangelizer is the question of God’s existence. There’s no sense discussing transubstantiation, the Virgin Birth or the infallibility of the pope with a committed atheist. With the rise of the “new atheists” like Oxford dons Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris… Read More ›
Is It Time To Hunker Down?
As Ireland votes overwhelmingly for same sex marriage and the rest of the Western world, it seems, can’t wait to follow their example, is it time to throw in the towel in the cultural slugfest? As radical Islam advances giving us nightmares and as the economic “recovery” looks increasingly shaky is it time to hunker… Read More ›
Is It Time for the Benedict Option?
In the face of moral and social disintegration, St. Benedict established core communities of intentional disciples. The poet T.S. Eliot predicted that, after the disintegration of Western society, civilization would be conserved and restored by a new monastic movement. He was referring to the events at the end of the fifth century, when Benedict of… Read More ›
Francis, Fatima and the End of the World
At the end of April it was confirmed that Pope Francis will travel to Fatima for the one hundredth anniversary of the Marian apparitions, and it is rumored that he will use the occasion to canonize the two youngest seers, Jacinta and Francisco Marto. This week, on the celebration of the Feast of Our Lady… Read More ›
Pope Francis Sees Persecution as Part of Cosmic Battle between Good and Evil
True to his reputation for being outspoken, Pope Francis risked a diplomatic upheaval by referring to the 1917 slaughter of Armenian Christians as “genocide.” The Armenian genocide took place at the end of the first world war when Turks rose up against their Christian neighbors—forcing them from their homes, actively slaughtering some and driving others… Read More ›
Seeking Satisfaction: Gluttony
There is a grotesque scene in the Monty Python film The Meaning of Life in which a hugely corpulent character named Mr Creosote eats a gigantic meal, vomits repeatedly and then, after eating a tiny after dinner mint, explodes. The comedy is completely outrageous, but you can’t miss the explicitly revolting depiction of gluttony. Being heavy is… Read More ›