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I was listening to the Catholic Laboratory podcast by Ian Maxfield yesterday, where he was bemoaning a recent report in NewScientist magazine about the effects of mental practices on recovery from illness. Yeah, stunning, I know. If you are grounded in your thinking, this will help you recover faster. [...] This column today was so insightful that I thought I’d share it in full with all of you. Lloyd Thomas is a fellow coach here in northern Colorado for whom I have the greatest respect. If you want to subscribe to his weekly column, follow the directions at the bottom. [...] I’ve had a number of things happening in the last few months which seem to be trying to push me away from having faith – in myself, in my church, in God. They’re subtle, but after they start mounting up you start thinking there might be a pattern. But I find myself paying attention to [...] At the Colloquium last week, one of the priests mentioned the relationship between sacred music and worship in his homily. He said something which was quite interesting, that I’ll attempt to paraphrase as best I can: “Our music is the tabernacle, the means of delivery of the Word to the faithful.” This is a fascinating [...] Colorado's state flower Summer is my time to reflect and renew my commitments for the coming year. I talked about this some last June, when I was struggling with whether our schola would achieve critical mass. Looking back on the progress, we now have grown to a dozen loyal and talented members, now including [...] We lost a big chunk off of one of our big trees with last week’s snow storm, and I spent a lot of time today cleaning up the mess. It gave me some time to think about the importance of pruning, especially since this is the time of year that I look at trimming my [...] This evening, my wife and I had a chance to attend a concert of the Larimer Chorale, our local and extremely talented choral group based in Fort Collins. The program was Rachmaninoff’s Vespers (All-Night Vigil), Opus 37. Sung entirely in Russian, it was an amazing experience! And more unexpected – a capella! [...] My wife and I had a chance to go to a local Amy Grant concert Friday night. This was a benefit for Lutheran Family Services, and included a limo ride down to Denver, and a meet-and-greet with Amy after the show. It was a truly fantastic evening, in so many ways. [...] One of my other roles at church is to help out with our parish’s RCIA program. Yesterday, despite a somewhat tenuous weather situation, we all traipsed down to the Cathedral in Denver for one of the Rite of Election services with the Archbishop. As always, he was a wonderful Shepherd for his flock, helping our [...] This is a time of turmoil in my spiritual life. I won’t go into more detail, but it’s something that is causing me to lose a bit of sleep. And what little hair I have left. What to do? [...] |