by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on December 21, 2011 · 18 comments
. . . But this morning, my Japanese friend, Koji, stopped by with some coffee he brewed using an old sock. (Trust me, you don’t want the gory details!). Koji handed me a cup – it’s pretty good, actually – and asked, “What can you tell me about the Magi?” That was odd because I’ve been thinking of writing about the Magi for Christmas. I told Koji I’ll let him read this post when finished. Maybe he’ll bring me more coffee made with that old sock of his. Lord, give me the strength to bear my blessings! Anyway, there’s no better place to begin the Magi story than St. Matthew’s own words: . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on December 8, 2010 · 9 comments
. . . I’ve always felt great sympathy for Zechariah. I imagined him having to make an urgent visit to the Temple men’s room after this, followed by the shock of being unable to intone the Temple prayers. Zechariah was accustomed to great deference from people of faith, and now he is scared speechless. I, too, would have asked for proof. For a cynic, and especially a sometimes arrogant one, good news is not easily taken at face value. . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on November 30, 2010 · 10 comments
. . . Our materialistic culture has absorbed and transformed just about everything spiritual that we should associate with Christmas. I wrote a few weeks ago in “At the Twilight’s Last Gleaming” that religion has been slowly stripped from the public square in our culture, and too often what remains is the intolerance of extremism used by the media to paint religion as destructive. We have a daunting challenge if future generations are to believe in anything worthy of belief, and that challenge is met within our own hearts and souls. We cannot bring into our culture that which we do not yet have in ourselves. In no time is this more true than in Advent, now reduced to the commercial selling of a “holiday spirit” that requires little more depth than an annual unprecedented spending spree. Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way to the cash register, and the Season of Giving and Taking is fulfilled. . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on February 10, 2010 · 12 comments
. . . Many of the younger prisoners are just lost. There’s a clear correlation between their presence here and the systemic breakdown of family – especially fatherhood – in our culture. There is an alarming number of young prisoners here who have had either abusive fathers or none at all. There is a direct and demonstrable correlation between the breakdown of family and the marked increase in prisoners in our society. . . . Anyone who is not alarmed by this statistic doesn’t understand the relationship between religious values, family life, crime, and the abandonment of young people to wander east of Eden. Among young men now in the New Hampshire prison system, the recidivism rate is a staggering 57 percent. . . .
