Inspiration Faith & Prayer Health & Wellness Entertainment Love & Family
Newsletters Special Offers

The Deacon's Bench

This is another of those great late vocation stories — but with a lot of twists along the highway of life. A lot. It comes to us from the Detroit Free Press and columnist Susan Ager: Tony Cureton is 63 years old, the divorced father of two young women he raised alone. He is a…

A reader sent me a note today from — of all places — New Zealand. He runs a spirituality website that is now devoting some time and attention to that precious prayer of the church, the Liturgy of the Hours. He asked if I’d be kind enough to link to him. I’m delighted to oblige.…

If anyone wonders why non-Catholics would want to send their kids to Catholic school, the Georgia Bulletin has a heartening explanation: Recommendations from other parents and a long-standing reputation as effective educators who also address a student’s moral development are key reasons why non-Catholic parents choose Catholic schools for their children. Jamal Burt, who is…

A parishioner sent these to me this week: snapshots of Your Humble Blogger, hard at work (or hardly working) at the sacrament of baptism earlier this month. We had three little girls, baptized on the feast of the Epiphany. As I told the families, instead of three wise men, we were welcoming three wise women.…

This one is slated to air during the 2008 Super Bowl, but it’s gaining a fast following on YouTube. Turn up the sound and enjoy.

A paper in Texas decided to ask several local preachers what books they use for references and anecdotes for their sermons. Curious? Take a look: Curtis Sellers, pastor, First Church of the Nazarene: There have been three books that have really impacted me lately. They are: 1. “Good to Great in God’s Eyes: Ten Practices…

If you have money in the stock market…or in a 401(k)…I suspect you’ve already spent a lot of time this past week, on your knees, praying. Me, too. It’s been, to put it mildly, a roller coaster. And the gyrations went from one end of the economy to the other. You had the mortgage crisis,…

Two of the great unsung heroes of the modern church are a couple programs designed to help marriages: Marriage Encounter and Retrouvaille. My wife and I made a Marriage Encounter weekend several years ago, and found it immensely enriching. But you hear less about the Retrouvaille program, which is designed specifically for marriages in trouble.…

Well, as expected, the Burke-Majerus feud is escalating, and others around St. Louis are starting to weigh in: A Roman Catholic archbishop’s call this week for Saint Louis University to discipline its popular basketball coach for publicly supporting abortion rights has put the Jesuit school in a bind. If the university takes action against Rick…

The pope today released his message for World Communications Day, which doesn’t happen until May. Perhaps he had a more urgent point to make. The high points, from CNS: In a world where the media increasingly distort facts and manipulate minds, the communication industry needs an ethics code, Pope Benedict XVI said. Just as bioethics…
archives most recent
search this blog
More from Beliefnet and our partners