Two Creighton University professors have dedicated years to researching the relationship between the spiritual dimension of sport, Catholic spirituality and theology. Dr JJ Carney and Dr Max Engel’s research offers insights into the spiritual dimensions of athletic competition and how the two worlds can interconnect. Evangelisation through sport Carney and Engel teach a popular course Read more
Have you noticed how the Sacred Presence brings gifts of understanding when you need them most? It’s the sentence that lifts off the page. It’s a few spoken words that go directly to the heart. We all have these experiences. One gift that has stayed with me, came from an old Jewish rabbi. He wrote: Read more
Nineteen-year-old Anne Wilson loves the stars, the television show “The Walking Dead” and her morning cup of vanilla iced coffee from Dunkin’. “I feel like it’s just straight from God,” she said. “It’s like he blesses that coffee in particular.” More than anything, Wilson says, she loves Jesus — as the teenager from central Kentucky Read more
Pope Francis has often urged us to prayerfully meditate before the crucifix. Because by prayerfully meditating before the crucifix, one can see and begin to understand the ultimate result of sin. The Romans’ sins, the Jews’ sins, our sins nailed our Lord Jesus to the cross. The cost of sin is death. Our sins killed Read more
Not one parent wants to see their teen suffer. Sometimes it does feel like your teen’s suffering is harder on you than it is for your child. It feels harder because you know more. You know how hard life is. Your teen isn’t even to the “hard part” of life yet and is still hurting Read more
Last summer I underwent radiation treatment. And every time I passed through the doorway marked “Radiation Oncology,” my heart seemed to skip a beat. While I was in little danger (my tumour was benign, and, yes, one sometimes needs radiation for that), I daily met people who were close to death. Every weekday for six Read more
In 2005 while undergoing chemotherapy, I was sitting in an uncomfortable recliner on the sixth floor of the medical facility. An IV dripped poison into my veins that would simultaneously cure me of the cancer in my body, and wreak havoc on it, sending waves of nausea, chills, malaise. The concoction did not discriminate between Read more
Suffering is an essential ingredient of our faith and humanity. One who doesn’t suffer with suffering brothers . . . must question himself on the sincerity of his faith and of his humanity, Pope Francis says. His comments were made in the context of the Rohingya minority, who are persecuted in Myanmar. Read more
A favourite millennium joke concerns a tableau staged in Heaven to celebrate 2000 years since the birth of Christ Jesus. As I remember it, it goes like this: It was a great celebration. The angels were in fine voice, and Jesus consented to be a baby again. He lay in Mary’s arms while Joseph sat Read more
The cause of canonization for the Italian laywoman Chiara Corbella opened June 13, the fifth anniversary of her death. Here is a recent interview with her husband: When Enrico Petrillo and Chiara Corbella were expecting their son Francesco, Chiara was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer. Together, they decided to postpone treatment so Read more