02
Jul 2021
This is my last ‘From the Pastor’s Desk’ as Pastor of St. Peter’s in The Dalles. Last Sunday was the farewell party and I was touched by the expressions of gratitude that I received, expressions of gratitude that were not just routine but said in effect, “We have heard you, Father, and have benefited from your ministry here and so grown closer to God.” That is the sort of gratitude that a priest wants to hear. Now looking back over my nine years here and knowing that while I have sought to......
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June 11, 2021
Supernatural faith and the anti-faith of materialism
The supernatural life begins with faith because faith is the door to the unseen world. Today we live in and have been formed by the world of anti-faith. It is important to recognize that reality...
May 14, 2021
Natural Virtue
Last Sunday I presented the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the subject of the grace of justification, which is effectively another name for sanctifying grace. (cf. CCC 1266) Sanctifying grace is...
May 07, 2021
Justification of the soul – the key to justice
I have spent more than a year writing about social justice or the right order of human society based upon the order revealed in Eden: the right order of man beneath God, the right order...
April 23, 2021
The Common Good: a shared life of worship and contemplation
Last week I began to enter into more detail on the subject of the common good as ‘living well together’ where ‘living well’ is defined by the Ten Commandments. After reviewing the ‘second table’, the...
April 16, 2021
The Common Good: a shared life of virtue
Last Sunday I resumed my series of reflections on ‘social justice’, the right order of human society, resuming again the theme of the ‘common good’. I spoke of the common good as ‘living well’ together,...
April 09, 2021
Social justice resumed: The common good as ‘living well together’
Last year I had been writing a series of reflections on ‘social justice’ as ‘the right order of human society’. I took as my starting point the harmonious order that existed in Eden before sin...
March 26, 2021
Evangelization in a Hostile Culture
During the course of the past three months, I have been analyzing and commenting on the gravity of the situation in this country, the mass of lies, the deep divisions arising from radically opposed world...
March 19, 2021
The Message to the Powerful and Prayer
In the wake of the Capitol riot on January 6 I have sought to provide a sort of analysis of the political and cultural situation in this country, based on a recognition of the very...
March 12, 2021
Living as a Christian in the midst of the new totalitarianism, Part II
Last Sunday I wrote about a whole group of people (namely those who have bought into the pro-abortion, pro-LGBT ideology) as inherently untrustworthy because of a radically distorted view of reality. In contemporary parlance this...