A Black Catholic Parish’s Feast Day – St. Vincent de Paul’s in My Home Town
Happy Feast Day to the only surviving historically Black Catholic parish in my home diocese of Nashville, St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church! Today is the feast day of 17th century priest, St. Vincent de Paul, which the universal Church celebrates as a memorial, but for St. Vincent’s it’s a full-on solemnity. Check out these…
Happy Glorious Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross!
Since it was only through the Cross Christ brought us victory, it is only through the same Cross we will find any true victory in this life or the life to come. The many “victories” of this world are really losses while the once and for all “defeat” of Jesus on the Cross is the…
Part 3: How To Keep the Lord’s Day No Matter What – Now That the Sun Has Returned: Reflection Series on The Lord’s Day for A Church (Still) Recovering From the Pandemic
This is Part 3 of a three-part reflection series on the importance and value of Sunday as the Lord’s Day and Sunday worship as the Church continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Part 2 was published last Sunday, and Part 1 was published the week before. This series is being featured on both BLACKCATHOLIC…
Black Catholic Saint Feast Day: St. Moses the Black (Aug 28) – Brief Personal Reflection on His Feast Day
Today the Church in the West (Latin Rite) celebrates the sainthood of a Black Catholic saint – St. Moses the Black, also called St. Moses the Ethiopian (330-405), a fourth century Desert Father and ascetic monk who lived a life of notable sanctity after a life of crime. He was once a robber in a…
Part 2: What Sunday Gives Us – Now That the Sun Has Returned: Reflection Series on The Lord’s Day for A Church (Still) Recovering From the Pandemic
This is Part 2 of a three-part reflection series on the importance and value of Sunday as the Lord’s Day and Sunday worship as the Church continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Part 1 was published last Sunday. This series is being featured on both BLACKCATHOLIC and Laudare. A little late with the past…
Now That the Sun Has Returned: Reflection Series on The Lord’s Day for A Church (Still) Recovering From the Pandemic – Part 1: The Pandemic, Sunday, and the Robbery of Meaning
Happy Solemnity of the Assumption of Our Lady and Mother! This time last year a lot of things were still locked down including churches, and if anything was open, there were extensive restrictions. Plus, the Sunday obligation to attend Mass was not in effect many parts of the Church. For a lot of us we…
“Now That The Sun Has Returned” – A Three-Part Reflection Series on the Value of Sunday as the Lord’s Day Begins This Sunday
This time last year a lot of things were still locked down including churches, and if anything was open, there were extensive restrictions. Plus, the Sunday obligation to attend Mass was not in effect many parts of the Church. For a lot of us we are definitely back to a situation that looks a lot…
Goodbye Texas! Great to See You Again, My Beloved Tennessee!
After two months of Spanish immersion in San Antonio at the Mexican American College I have returned back home to my beloved Tennessee. Texas, it was good meeting you for the first time, but Tennessee (and my other seminarian’s obligations) was calling me back home. Me and one other Nashville seminarian left on Friday 4:00am…
“What if I should do what the saints did?”
“While reading the life of Christ our Lord or the lives of the saints, he [St. Ignatius of Loyola] would reflect and reason with himself: ‘What if I should do what Saint Francis or Saint Dominic did?’” – from Luis Gonzalez’s biography of St. Ignatius. The question St. Ignatius asked himself hit me good today…
ARTICLE SHARE: “Black Catholics See Continued Progress on the Road to Canonization for ‘Saintly Six’” (National Catholic Register)
While there are in fact a number of Black Catholic saints (individuals of African heritage/descent that have lived holy Catholic lives and have been canonized) there are no African American Catholic saints as of yet. However, there are currently six Black American holy ones who are on the path to being canonized as saints with…