Our Faith Compass: Spiritual Direction for challenging times
I mentioned, quite awhile ago, that I would be doing on talk on this subject matter. I have completed it and will be giving it for the first time this week at St. Peter's parish in Kirkwood, MO, a suburb of St. Louis in USA. For those of you familiar with our CD's we...
Busy USA Summer
We are about to depart for Australia and our three months of work there. A highlight for me this past July was a study pilgrimage tour of the holy places of St. Francis and St. Clare inRrome and Assisi. It was a test for my two new prosthetic hips and one I passed...
Survey of Young Catholics
We received 77 responses. Thank you to all who helped us by filling out the survey. We have tallied the results and will now incorporate them into our talk on Mission. We were very impressed by the faithful and thoughtful responses. We were inspired by the ways in...
Survey
Nick and I are putting a new talk together and we need some information. The talk title is "Mission". To this end we have designed a survey which is intended for young adults ages 20-30 who were baptized Catholic, regardless of their present situation. The survey...
Carrying a Compass: spiritual direction for today
A new talk I am preparing will be the above title. So often the media driven politics, relentless consumerism, the frailty of the economy and its impact on us (job loss, lack of adequate health care, minimal access to good education, etc.) --all can make us...
Suicide Prevention
Nick has just given a new talk on the topic of Judas. The main point he makes is that Judas was forgiven by God and so are all of our relatives and friends who commit suicide. A woman spoke with us afterward. Her son committed suicide on Christmas Eve two years...
Tribute to Frs. Carson and Mike Champlin
Many of you are aware that the Thomas More Center was begun by Mike and Carson Champlin. Carson died of cancer in 1989 and Mike, of course, continues to be on our Team. I was recently directed to a book by a priest who met Carson and Mike when they did a renewal in...
Spiritual Poetry for Summer and Winter / Southern Hemisphere and Northern Hemisphere
I recently saw these two poems which inspired me. First is a summer reflection for those in the So. Hemisphere: i thank you God for most this amazing by E. E. Cummings i thank You God for most this amazing day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true...
Christmas Fun
Instead of exchanging gifts this year, Mike, Nick and I had a "night out" in Minneapolis to celebrate Christmas just before we each went our separate ways mid December. We went to see the 3D film "A Christmas Carol", the adaptation of Charles Dicken's classic,...
Church Issues
There are two Church issues that have been of concern to us lately: Firstly there is the issue of the Vatican visitation or scrutiny of active religious congregations of women religious in the U.S. Sr. Sandra Schneiders, IHM has written the most clear explanation of...