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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
A few years ago, a friend of mine, an Assistant HR director in an IT firm, very respected, very composed, sent an email meant for one person, to everyone in the office. And not a short email. This was one of those long, late-night, brutally honest, carefully worded, emotionally charged emails. It began politely: “I think we need to address a few concerns” And then slowly, very professionally, it turned into a detailed analysis of one colleague’s failures, missed deadlines, half-finished work, and a pattern of inconsistency. Very professional. Very precise. The kind of email you feel good writing, and regret deeply sending. Anyway, he hit send after he had finished writing and for a few seconds everything was normal and peaceful. Then someone replied to that email, that’s when he noticed that the mail had been sent to all in the office. At that moment, you know it. The stomach drops. Time stops. You seriously consider moving to another continent.
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Chime Travelers | Faith friendly media | saint stories
The highly anticipated animated video series based on the books of the same name from award-winning author and Catholic Mom founder Lisa M. Hendey is available now. Family Theater Productions (a sister ministry to CatholicMom.com) and Texas-based animation studio Herald Entertainment, Inc. announced today the release of their new animated children’s series, “Chime Travelers,” on Formed and Hallow. The animated series, geared for kids ages 6-11, follows twins Katie and Patrick as they travel back in time to walk alongside some of the most well-known saints, such as Saint Patrick, Saint Clare, Saint Francis, and Saint Joseph, as they face challenges and learn ways to handle some of life’s toughest issues at that age. Chime Travelers is based on the books of the same name by award-winning author and Catholic Mom founder Lisa M. Hendey.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
The reading from the Book of Wisdom that we heard today will return to us on Good Friday. It speaks of a righteous person who becomes the target of resentment and hostility—not because he has done wrong, but because his goodness exposes the darkness around him. His very life is a challenge to those who reject God. They plot against him, tear at his reputation, and test him to see if God will defend him. Yet, as we hear elsewhere in Scripture, he does not retaliate. He turns the other cheek.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
Saint Joseph is a great bridge figure between the Old and New Testaments, in the image of the Hebrew patriarchs and the adoptive father of the promised Messiah. When we think in the broadest sense about what the Jewish covenant with the Lord consists of, the two words that come to mind are “the Law and the Prophets.” The Law, or the Torah, guided the Jewish people to live their lives well; it was more than a set of just dry rules, for a more accurate translation of Torah would be “the teachings,” the teachings of Who God is and how we can follow His plan for our lives. And we might best think of the Prophets not so much as predictors of the future, but as the pinnacle figures of Jewish prayer, similar to the great prayer mystics in our Catholic tradition.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
In the era before the Industrial Revolution, it was quite common for a son to learn a trade or a profession directly from his father. In fact, some of the medieval guilds, automatically accepted the son of a member into their ranks. Of course, this kind of dynamic played out explicitly in the life of Jesus. Joseph was a carpenter, and Jesus was known as both “the son of the carpenter” and as a carpenter himself. It’s beautiful to imagine a teenage or young adult Jesus and Joseph going out on jobs together or working with each other on projects at their home in Nazareth.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
Anyone who has ever tried to start exercising again after months or years of neglect knows this. The first day you say, “Tomorrow I will start.” Tomorrow comes, and suddenly your body invents fifty reasons why today is not the day. The strange thing is that the longer we stay stuck, the more normal the ‘stuckness’ begins to feel. There is a man lying near the pool in Jerusalem. Thirty-eight years. Just think about that. Some of you here have not been alive that long. Thirty-eight years. That's longer than most marriages. Longer than most careers. Imagine you've been sick for thirty-eight years. Not with a cold. Not with a bad back, not even a fractured hand. And every single day, you drag yourself to a pool and you wait. And wait. And wait some more. Thirty-eight years is long enough for a person’s entire identity to become wrapped around a single sentence: “This is just how my life is.”
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