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Christmas Homily 2011
I have to say, just between you and me, that I sometimes have a problem with the people that get all up in arms about the secularization and commercialization of Christmas. You know the ones I’m talking about: the folks who get all worked up over “Xmas”, despite the fact that it’s been used for
Homily for 2nd Sunday of Advent, December 3, 2011
2nd Advent “B” / 5 I’ve always been fascinated by the character of John the Baptist. In the Gospels he’s depicted as a sort of primitive: coming out of the desert, wearing camel hair and leather, eating what he can scavenge. These are all the marks of a prophet, and John is very much cut
Homily for October 23, 2011 St. Philip Neri Parish, Portland OR
A quick show of hands: How many of you work for a company or organization that has a Mission Statement? OK, now, how many of you could tell me what it says? Not many! The Mission Statement is the greatest invention of the management consulting industry of the 1980’s. Great fortunes were made by consultants
Feast of St. Januarius
One of the things critical to understanding Catholicism is that ours is an embodied and sacramental faith. Our Christianity isn’t just a head trip, or some intellectual construct; it permeates our physical reality, our world, and our own bodies. In our best moments, this challenges us to integrate body, mind, and spirit, and to put
Barred Owl
Barred Owl 4, a photo by lrice on Flickr. Our property on Lake George is teeming with wildlife. I’ve had several encounters with deer, a coyote, bats, and thousands of chipmunks. This Barred Owl is the coolest fauna yet. He he nests near our chapel, and just after dusk comes out to hunt. That should
+Clifton C. Rice, Two Years Ago Today.
It’s hard to believe that my dad passed into eternal life two years ago today. The memory of his final week is such a stark, vivid recollection, and the intervening two years have gone by so quickly, with so many changes! They say that you never really finish grieving the loss of a parent (or
Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul
Every year on January 25th, the Church commemorates the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. This is a particularly important day for us Paulists, and we generally treat it as our primary feast day of the year. We see ourselves as successors of St. Paul, bringing the Gospel to those outside the Church, and
Wheels off the Wagon
Wheels off the Wagon Originally uploaded by lrice I spent a little time this afternoon with my friend John Remy. We occasionally wander off into the rural Ohio countryside looking for ruined barns, farm equipments, or bits of rural decay to shoot. This was my best shot of the day, taken kinda off-handedly where we
The Tale of the Traveling iPad
Last week, for the Thanksgiving weekend, I stayed with my brother and sister-in-law in Syracuse, NY. It was a glorious weekend, filled with family, fun, food, and an abundance of gluten-free pastry. On Sunday afternoon I departed, and began the drive to Washington DC, for the Paulist General Council meeting. Unfortunately, my iPad stayed behind
Homily for November 21, 2010: Christ the King
If, like me, you attended a Catholic elementary school in the 1960’s (or earlier), your memories of the feast of Christ the King probably include lots of marching. We’d line up– boys on one side, girls on the other, and led by our battalion commander, Sister Mary Alma, we would march from the school yard