Sunday, April 19, 20200330As we move further into this global program of “social distancing” because of COVID-19, millions around the world are trying to figure out what to do with all the time they must now spend in isolation at home.
Friday, April 10, 20200437Father Thomas Esposito
Special to The Texas Catholic
When I read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ ministry, I often pause to ask myself: would I have been brave enough to accept his invitation to discipleship if I heard him with my own ears? Had I been a believing Jew following his ministry, could I have embraced his vision of my...
Tuesday, April 7, 20200355The coronavirus is creating a big challenge for teachers and students around the world. My heart goes out to the students, who, if they are among the lucky ones, are sitting at home with online schoolwork, but without the ability to spend time with their classmates in person, play sports, enjoy clubs, and do other fun things. My heart...
Friday, March 27, 20200403The word “quarantine” as we use it today was first coined in 14th century Venice – the leaders of that most serene watery republic ordered a mandatory period of isolation for people arriving in ships during the Black Death outbreak. A sequence of 40 days — una quarantina in modern Italian — was sufficient, they deemed, to...
Saturday, March 21, 202001466We’re a few weeks into Lent, and since we’ve had some time now to try our Lenten disciplines of praying, fasting and almsgiving, let’s take a moment to reevaluate them in light of some ancient wisdom. Here are three tips about fasting from the Rule of St. Benedict.
Friday, March 6, 20200324By Father Thomas Esposito
Special to The Texas Catholic
January 27 marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the most notorious of the Nazi extermination camps. Noting that occasion, Paraclete Press published the translation of a Jewish-Catholic woman’s experience in the death camps. Entitled “The Auschwitz...
Saturday, February 22, 20200396I recently finished a fascinating book by Norman Doidge on neuroplasticity, “The Brain that Changes Itself.” It’s a very readable book about how science is overturning the “mechanistic” view of the human being, which, Doidge argues, has dominated culture at least since the philosopher-scientist René Descartes (1596-1600)....
Friday, February 7, 20200565If posed to a general audience, the question “What is prudence?” would likely elicit a series of memorable and perhaps depressing answers, ranging from “a name for a cranky granny” and “a cool Beatles song from the White Album” to “excessive hesitation in coming to a decision” and “the Catholic way of saying ‘NO’ to...
Wednesday, January 22, 20200452I do not often go to the movies, but I do try to see everything I can by the director Terrence Malick, since I think he is for movies what Michelangelo was for marble — a master of the medium like no other. His most recent movie, “A Hidden Life,” is one of the most interiorly beautiful movies I’ve ever seen. It recounts the...
Thursday, January 16, 20200586This column is simply an exhortation to you, good reader, to watch and ponder the film “A Hidden Life.” The movie chronicles the true story of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer, devoted husband, father of three young girls, and a devout Catholic who refused to swear an oath of loyalty to Hitler, and was consequently condemned...
