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When Troubles Rise - A Homily for the 5th Sunday of the Year Msgr. Charles Pope • February 3, 2018 • In life we face many difficulties; they challenge us and our faith. Deep struggle can lead us to question God, His love, or even His existence. The readings today speak to us of these sorts of difficulties and prophetically interpret them for us. Let’s take a look at these readings in three stages. I. The Disillusionment of Deep Despair – The reading from the book of Job clearly articulates the feeling we have all experienced at one time...

Many ancient and beautiful churches and monasteries, dating from the Byzantine era and dotting the mountainous landscape of Albania, have fallen into ruin due to years and decades of neglect. However, a program is has recently begun for the reconstruction of ancient temples, with the hope of attracting more tourists, reports tvkultura.ru. Before the First World War Albania was Turkish, and became socialist after the Second. The regime, which was one of the most severe, fell in the early 1990s, but during the reign of Enver Hoxha from 1944 to 1985, churches continued to deteriorate. Churches and mosques were often...

VLORE, Albania - Sister Bardhe Gjini was scared of her aunt, a nun, when they first met in 1993. Gjini, then 21 and not even baptized, said she was afraid because her aunt and the other sisters “were all dressed in black, just like widows.” Her aunt, Sister Julja Gjoka, asked if she would like to become a religious sister. Gjini told her no. But today, in the same city where they first met, Gjini continues the legacy of her late aunt, who was part of a religious community of five women who lived their faith in secret during communist...

All in God's time Question: God always was and always will be. We are talking about millions of years. How can I better understand this? — Eugene Herkins, Naples, Florida Answer: The wording of your question indicates you are thinking of time in a linear way. To be sure, it is difficult for us to grasp such a long period of time. However, God is more than very old, he is eternal. Eternity refers not merely to the length of time, but more accurately, to the fullness of time. For God, there is no tomorrow or yesterday; everything is...

Today, February 2, marks exactly 100 years from the adoption of the Bolsheviks’ main anti-Church decree, “On the Separation of the Church from the State and Schools from the Church.” This decree established and proclaimed the secular character of the governmental authorities, all civil status acts were transferred to the jurisdiction of the civil authorities, and the teaching of religious creeds and disciplines was forbidden in all educational institutions. All property existing in Russian Church and religious societies was declared national property, reports pravoslavie.ru. Despite the formal proclamation of freedom of conscience and confession, unprecedented religious persecution began in the...

A Dramatic Biblical Moment That Nearly Everyone Missed Msgr. Charles Pope • February 1, 2018 • The moment of the Presentation of Jesus was one of the most dramatic in biblical history, yet almost no one noticed.The first part of this post is review for those of you who read my blog regularly. To skip to the newer insights, skip down to the sentence in red.Joseph and Mary have gone to Jerusalem to fulfill two ancient mandates: the Rite of Purification for a woman after childbirth and the Rite of Presentation for a firstborn male child. These rites set...

A meeting of the organizing committee for carrying out the events dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the martyrdom of the Tsar Nicholas II and his holy family was recently held under the chairmanship of the First Deputy Head of the Ekaterinburg city administration. More than 70 events between February and December are planned to commemorate this great crime that took place in Ekaterinburg and which has become one of the Russian ChurchÂ’s most beloved celebrations, reports the official site of the Ekaterinburg city administration. The meeting gathered the heads of municipal structural departments, law enforcement agencies, and the Ekaterinburg...

The Gift of the African-American Catholic Tradition The Gift of the African-American Catholic Tradition Msgr. Charles Pope • January 31, 2018 • February is African-American History Month. Most of you who read here regularly know that I’ve spent most of my 28 years of priesthood ministering in African-American parishes here in Washington, D.C. (At right is a picture of our choir.)In recent years, my own parish has become more racially and ethnically diverse, but we are still deeply rooted in the long African-American heritage here and we celebrate that in particular at our 11:00 AM Sunday Mass. It is a...

Six Principles of Discernment Msgr. Charles Pope • January 30, 2018 • As a priest and pastor I am often called to spend time with people as they discern the voice and the will of God in their life. I have about twenty lay people for whom I provide spiritual direction. In addition, I am sometimes approached by people who are facing a critical time in their life (e.g., a family crisis, an important career decision, discerning a vocation) and would like careful guidance as they discern the best course of action or the best decision.Thank God that many...

In addition to their holy deaths, the Russian Orthodox Church canonized Tsar Nicholas II and his family as saints because they placed moral ideals above the royal crown, His Holiness Pat. Kirill stated at the opening of the 26th annual Nativity Readings yesterday, reports RIA-Novosti. The theme of this year’s Readings, held inside the Moscow Kremlin, is “Moral Values and the Future of Mankind.” The Nativity Readings are a Church-public forum held annually in the sphere of education, culture, social service, and spiritual-moral enlightenment. “As if a reward for the love that reigned in this family, they remained inseparable in...

Pick Your Battles – As Seen in a Commercial Msgr. Charles Pope • January 29, 2018 • In life we have to decide which battles to fight and which to leave to others. We need to learn which battles are ours and which belong to others. Often we allow the urgent to leap ahead of the important on our priority list. We are forever pursuing the latest trendy battles rather than the ones we should be fighting.In the commercial below a certain “eco-warrior” tries to fight every popular battle: saving the whales, the trees, the ice caps, and so...

The Need for Two Pockets Msgr. Charles Pope • January 28, 2018 • Like so many things in life, self-esteem needs to be balanced. The balance is between humility and pride. The following is attributed to Rabbi Simcha Bunim, one of the leaders of Hasidic Judaism in Poland in the late 1700s and early 1800s:Everyone must have two pockets so that he can reach into one or the other according to his needs. In his right pocket are to be the words, “For my sake was the world created,” and in his left pocket, “I am dust and ashes”...

A Portrait of Jesus the Preacher – A Homily for the 4th Sunday of the Year Msgr. Charles Pope • January 27, 2018 • In Sunday’s Gospel Jesus models four aspects of powerful and effective preaching.In using the word “preaching” we ought to be careful not to limit it to what takes place in a church. All Catholic parents should learn from Jesus’ example here for they have the church of their home in which to preach; they have the pulpit of the dining room table, the living room couch, and even the family car. We all must learn...

We arrived at the forum, and straight away the story went about the neighbourhood near the forum and a huge crowd gathered. We walked up to the prisoner's dock. All the others when questioned admitted their guilt. Then, when it came my turn, my father appeared with my son, dragged me from the step, and said: Perform the sacrifice--have pity on your baby!' Hilarianus the governor, who had received his judicial powers as the successor of the late proconsul Minucius Timinianus, said to me: 'Have pity on your father's grey head; have pity on your infant son. Offer the sacrifice...

Majoring in the Minors, as Seen in a Commercial Msgr. Charles Pope • January 26, 2018 • We live in times of great ingenuity; we have a lot of smarts. We’ve been to the moon and back. Our computers can do more and more amazing things, even as we are able to make them smaller and smaller. We can see farther than ever into outer space and look more deeply than ever into “inner space,” doing microsurgery and studying the human genome.Yet although we have become technological giants, at the same time we’ve become moral midgets. Though able to...

Eyes that Are Humble - A Meditation on the Conversion of St. Paul Msgr. Charles Pope • January 25, 2018 • Today in daily Mass we read the well-known story of St. Paul’s conversion. There is a detail in the story that I have often pondered. Although I am speculating on the specifics, I think it ought not to be overlooked. Even my choice of the words “speculating” and “overlooked” (both of which refer to the eyes) indicate that we ought to “give an eye” to St. Paul’s eyes.As you probably recall, St. Paul was not just struck down...

A Brief Story About the Need for Prudence Msgr. Charles Pope • January 24, 2018 • God speaks to us through many experiences and images. Sometimes there are differing layers of meaning and we must carefully and prudently discern what God is saying to us. Prudence is not the same as caution. Rather, it is the virtue that bids us, in each situation, to keep in mind our deeper call and final goal. Consider the following story:A man, walking through the forest saw a fox that had lost its legs, and wondered how it lived. Then he saw a...

Liberals have stuck to a pretty consistent strategy in dealing with American Christianity: If you repeat something often enough, people will start to believe it. With the media's help, they set out to convince the country that evangelicals were dying on the political vine. But, as so often happens, they were proven wrong on the biggest of stages when, in 2016, the church's "withering" influence proved to be anything but. Since then, teams of researchers have been trying to get a read on the state of Christianity in America -- and what they've found might surprise you. After years of...

A Short Reflection on Pain Msgr. Charles Pope • January 23, 2018 • All of us ponder why God permits suffering. By faith we acknowledge that God never permits it except that a greater good may come from it. Perhaps He permits that we suffer loss in order to bestow some new gift in its place. Even beautiful relationships may hinder some new growth that God wants to bestow. For example, the death of a loved ones creates a space for the new and different while not canceling the gifts of the one who passed.Suffering brings sobriety by reminding...

What Attachments Are and What They Are Not Msgr. Charles Pope • January 22, 2018 • This past Sunday, we read St. Paul’s almost ominous words about our need to break free from attachments to this world:I tell you, brothers, the time is running out. From now on, let those having wives act as not having them, those weeping as not weeping, those rejoicing as not rejoicing, those buying as not owning, those using the world as not using it fully. For the world in its present form is passing away (1 Cor 7:29-31).In this passage St. Paul speaks...