Category: Church

Not all priests should offer the sacrament of reconciliation (confession). Not all priests should preside at mass. Not all priests should preach. Just because a man is ordained doesn’t mean he has the training or the skill and ability to do those things well.

Most priests (I hope) spend time preparing to preach. But those who do prepare have different styles. I know a couple priests who write out their homilies word for word. Myself, I use bullet points in an outline. The photo above shows how another priest prepared for preaching today, the 1st Sunday of Advent. His notes above would not help me but they helped him give a really good homily. Different strokes for different folks….

The Catholic Church is one of the major actors in providing schools for children in Cambodia with autism. Today the Church of the Child Jesus in the Boeung Tum Pun area of Phnom Penh had a benefit concert to raise money for an enlarged school building on their campus. Performing was a professional ensemble of singers and musicians from Japan.

This morning at our Sunday liturgy, we had a special blessing, a remembrance for Raymond Leos, our parishioner who died three weeks ago. His brother Greg and Greg’s wife Kristen and their daughter Alexandra came from the United States and celebrated Ray’s life and death with us. I think it is very important for a parish to mark the special and important events in the lives of our church family like this.

Today Couples for Christ, a lay group that tries to put its Christian faith into action, had a conference with a theme suggested by the prophet Isaiah–being a servant in service of God and being a light for others through our service.

First the group had some song of praise and worship together, then Fr. Charlie gave a talk on Isaiah 49:6, and then there was a “boodle fight,” a Filipino creation–eating a line of food (vegetables, rice, fish, meats, spring rolls, etc.) without plates or utensils. Everyone wears two plastic gloves and eats with their hands. An interesting experience for this Kentucky boy!

We’re still getting used to our new mass center at St. Jude Thaddeus School in Phnom Penh. We use their multi-purpose room (a former warehouse) for masses on Saturdays. They keep changing the room around each week. They have some wooden risers we use for a platform for the altar and always before they were covered in worn red carpeting and were of different heights. Tonight they were covered in green and are all the same height, a big improvement.