The Angel in the Marble
by © LPi Colleen Jurkiewicz Dorman | 09/29/2024 | Weekly ReflectionIf you show up to the gates of heaven completely whole, I kind of doubt you’ll be let inside.
I know that sounds pretty awful, because what kind of God doesn’t want all of you, exactly as you are? “Be yourself,” we tell our kids. “If someone expects you to change to be their friend, you don’t want to be that person’s friend.”
ContinueBearing Witness
by © LPi Colleen Jurkiewicz Dorman | 09/22/2024 | Weekly ReflectionI am fascinated by minor Gospel characters. These people — the rich young man, the adulterous woman, the teachers at the temple — share the stage with Jesus only briefly. They bear passing but powerful witness to crucial moments of his earthly ministry. They breathe the air he breathes. They hear the sound of his voice. Some of them feel the touch of his skin. And then they go on with their lives and disappear into obscurity. They become just another one of us.
ContinueTake Up Your Cross
by © LPi Colleen Jurkiewicz Dorman | 09/15/2024 | Weekly ReflectionWhen I’m interviewing people for my job as a staff writer at an archdiocesan newspaper, I like to ask them this question: at the end of your life, when you meet God, what do you want to hear Him say?
I’ve gotten a lot of interesting answers.
ContinueBe Opened
by © LPi Fr. John Muir | 09/08/2024 | Weekly ReflectionOne of the most touching YouTube videos I’ve ever seen is one in which a deaf woman receives new technology to heal her hearing. She hears her husband's voice for the first time — and her own, too — and bursts into tears of overwhelming joy. It must have been like an immovable wall between her and her loved ones came tumbling down.
ContinueThe Word
by © LPi Colleen Jurkiewicz Dorman | 09/01/2024 | Weekly ReflectionOn November 28, 1981, Alphonsine Mumureke was in the dining room at her high school in Kibeho, a small village in southwestern Rwanda. She heard a voice. It was a woman, veiled and beautiful. Alphonsine asked her who she was. “I am the Mother of the Word,” answered the woman.
It was the first appearance of Our Lady of Kibeho, who would return to visit Alphonsine and two of her schoolmates over the course of the next eight years. She left with them an urgent call for repentance, along with a prophecy of the Rwandan genocide that would come to fruition in the next decade.
ContinueTo Whom Shall We Go?
by Colleen Jurkiewicz Dorman ©LPi | 08/25/2024 | Weekly ReflectionA friend of mine, who is a far better Christian than I can ever hope to be, once shared with me that her family sneers at her belief system and lifestyle. She believes in fairy tales they tell her. She’s looking for simple solutions from a kind-faced man in the sky because she doesn’t want to grapple with complicated answers to complicated problems.
Religion, they argue, is the easy way out. As she spoke about this, her voice became unsteady. Not with anger, but with emotion. “I would never call this life easy,” she said. “If I was looking for something that was easy, I wouldn’t choose Catholicism.”
ContinueNot by Faith Alone
by © LPi Fr. John Muir | 08/18/2024 | Weekly ReflectionA priest I know was asked by a door-to-door evangelist, “Do you believe in Jesus?” He answered, “Yes, I do. But if I may ask you,” he continued, “Where do you experience Jesus’ body and blood?” His interlocutor responded somewhat confusedly, “I don’t. I just believe in him. That’s all that is needed.” Later my priest friend would relate to me, “The more I thought about it, that response struck me as totally inadequate. As human beings, we need to encounter Jesus’ body and blood, not just hear about him and mentally believe. Otherwise, Jesus is just a ghost.”
ContinueBelieve
by © LPi Fr. John Muir | 08/11/2024 | Weekly ReflectionThis week we hear Jesus say, “He that believes in me, has eternal life” (John 6:47). These straightforward words, uttered by human lips, sound — how to put this? — insane. Who could possibly say such a thing? Jesus says things that are so high, so demanding, so beyond our capacity to fathom, we hardly know what to do with them and (if you’re like me), they usually go in one ear and out the other. So, let us ask: how can believing in him lead to eternal life?
ContinueHunger and Thirst for God
by © LPi Fr. John Muir | 08/04/2024 | Weekly ReflectionSince my college days I’ve loved a song called “Dance with You” by the rock band Live. It touches on the deep mystical hunger of our heart: “I’ve tasted all the wines/ a half a billion times/ came sickened to your shore/ you showed me what this life is for.” These lines resonate with anyone who has feasted on the good things of this world only to be left spiritually hungover and unsatisfied.
ContinueCoraggio — Take More
by © LPi Colleen Jurkiewicz Dorman | 07/28/2024 | Weekly ReflectionIt doesn’t matter what time of day we visit my mother-in-law – she always has food to offer. If we take two helpings, she will encourage us to take three. If we take three helpings, she will say, “Coraggio — take more.” (She’s Italian, in case you couldn’t tell from the food-pushing and the language.)
ContinueRest in the Generosity of God
by © LPi Fr. John Muir | 07/21/2024 | Weekly ReflectionBurnout. Recent studies suggest that roughly two-thirds of doctors and nurses have signs of it. You probably know what burnout is: long-term stress leading to emotional exhaustion and a lack of a sense of personal accomplishment. Burnout can threaten anyone who tries to seriously serve and love others. How does our faith inform this challenging experience, and how do we find refreshment?
ContinueShake Off the Dust
by © LPi Colleen Jurkiewicz Dorman | 07/14/2024 | Weekly ReflectionOur kitchen floor is at least 35 years old, and it’s the ugliest color to come out of the ‘80s. But it’s a good, durable floor, and my husband, bless his heart, guards it like it was a finely finished hardwood imported from Brazil. Every time the kids track mud and sand across its vinyl surface, he immediately gets down on his hands and knees and lovingly wipes the mess away. I’m too impatient to do this myself — we have kids, so we’re going to have a dirty floor, is my attitude. But this is the hill upon which my husband dies.
ContinueA Prophet and His Native Place
by © LPi Colleen Jurkiewicz Dorman | 07/07/2024 | Weekly Reflection“A prophet is not without honor except in his native place.” It could be the slogan of high school reunions everywhere.
I speak from experience — I didn’t go to my high school reunion, but I do live in the same area in which I grew up. Ghosts from the past lurk in every grocery aisle and gas station. Former classmates fill my prescriptions at the pharmacy. I am always sure to see an old teacher or two at the Fourth of July parade.
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