Last Sunday, the celebration of the baptism of Jesus, was the end of the church’s Christmas season. What these men are doing at St. Boniface Church in Louisville is what happened in your parish after the last mass this past Sunday.
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Category: Church
The Catholic Church in Cambodia.
A Bad Week
Jan, a reader of my website, commented:
The more I watched the video that day (of Dick Van Dyke dancing at 100 years of age) the sadder I became. I even cried. I cried serious tears. I felt a very heavy dark cloud lingering around me. I finally realized that I was crying for the innocence I once had. I was also crying for the innocence I once saw in my fellow human beings. I am sad for our country, humanity in general and for what I once thought we were as a country.
Pope Leo, the day Jan wrote, commented on the need for the church:
to open up to the world and to embrace the changes and challenges of the modern age in dialogue and co-responsibility, as a church that wishes to open her arms to humanity, to echo the hopes and anxieties of peoples, and to collaborate in building a more just and fraternal society.
Anne Lamott, spiritual writer, wished:
I wish us praying people could pray a fast turnaround—Remember Flip Wilson saying, “I’m about to pray. Anybody need anything?” This isn’t how it works. How it works is each of us doing one small good thing, every day.
ICE Out demo
Saturday saw a pop-up ICE Out demonstration in Louisville, one of the many that took place across the United States.
Keep on learning!
Twice a month a group of Catholic people gather to discuss a book by theologian Dairmud O’Murchu about the union of ecology and theology.
We met today to discuss chapter 6 which is especially challenging to some of the ways of thinking we have grown up with.
Nick Rice’s funeral
Fr. Nick Rice was three years ahead of me at St. Thomas Seminary in Louisville and was ordained in 1967 and assigned to St. Lawrence Parish. Three years later he was transferred and I, newly ordained, replaced him at St. Lawrence. He was an exceptionally good priest and I started my ministry in the afterglow of his time at St. Lawrence. Later when Nick started Mass of the Air I worked with him to get sign language interpreters for the televised liturgies. Later he set up the deacon program in Louisville and then took positions in national church organizations. In addition to that he was just my good friend. He died last week and today we celebrated his funeral.
Reconnecting
Saturday night, after some of the guys had their Saturday mass, a group of us met for dinner. For them it was a continuation of their monthly practice. For me it was another of my reconnecting experiences as I merge back into the church of Louisville. Good guys!
New Year Prayer
If you wish, take a few breaths and offer yourself this simple blessing:
May I carry forward what truly matters.
May I release what no longer serves.
May I walk into this new year with courage and care.
And then extend that light outward:
May we choose love again and again.
May our world remember its own goodness.
The light you seek for the year ahead is not waiting somewhere else.
It already lives in you—
in your capacity to begin again,
to forgive a little more
to open when it would be easier to close.
As this year turns, may you trust that something wise is moving you forward even when you cannot see the path.
With gratitude for you, and faith in what is unfolding!
~ Jack Komfield
Cambodia-Thailand Conflict
Bishop Olivier of Phnom Penh is a very active player in the life of the kingdom and always reaches out to the Buddhists to address issues, celebrate events, etc. In the current conflict between the kingdoms of Cambodia and Thailand, Bishop Olivier has gone to the front lines with a Buddhist delegation and has engaged with Buddhist leadership in praying for peace.
The joint prayer events take on a form not so familiar to Christian groups. Literally hundreds of Buddhist monks came together for this joint prayer service.
New Year 2026
Christmas Time
John’s gospel begins with “In the beginning was the Word….and the Word was God…. All things came to be through him”. Creation spirituality asks us to consider that the Incarnation–God becoming human and part of creation–was not just a one-time event with the birth of Christ but that God was incarnate in creation from the beginning, from the Big Bang.
In Luke’s gospel, in his account of the birth of May’s son, he reminds us three times that Jesus was born in the city of David. There, when the promised savior is born, shepherds and angels–representing the land and the sky, the earth and the heavens, the totality of creation–rejoice together. The Incarnate One is part of all creation, not just the human species.