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A few years after priestly ordination, a classmate from Our Lady of Providence Seminary and also from St. Bernard’s Seminary in Rochester suggested that all my Sunday sermons were the same: …
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12/12/24
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Seminarians are expected to attend Mass every day, even when home on vacation. All happily oblige. Daily Mass in my home parish, St. Charles, Woonsocket, was celebrated at 7 a.m. But Holy Family …
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12/5/24
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Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935) was a French army officer whose trial for treason deeply marked the political and social history of France for almost a century. Dreyfus was the son of a wealthy Jewish …
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11/27/24
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The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, is not at all an old feast on the Church’s liturgical calendar. Pope Pius XI instituted the Feast of Christ the King in his …
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11/21/24
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Sister Mary Lucy Carr, R.S.M., was my ninth grade teacher at St. Charles School in Woonsocket and perhaps of more than any other person I am a priest today because of her persistence. A classmate had …
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11/14/24
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It is difficult to believe that the gaunt, haggard figure of St. Charles deFoucauld, tanned by the Moroccan sun and hardened by the desert sands, was once known back in Paris as “Fats …
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10/31/24
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Soon to be installed as Archbishop of Boston, his Excellency Richard G. Henning warmly endeared himself to the people of Rhode Island when, at his first public Mass at the Cathedral of SS. Peter and …
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10/24/24
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The apostles James and John, sons of the fisherman Zebedee, rose to great prominence in the early church. James and his brother John were nicknamed Boanerges, that is, “Sons of Thunder,” …
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10/17/24
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During his lengthy pontificate in the late nineteenth century, Pope Leo XIII wrote twelve encyclical letters encouraging the Catholic world to exercise more effective prayer through devotion to the …
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10/10/24
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Catholics are rightly in awe at the action of their priests who, by the words of consecration at Mass, can make present on the Church’s altars the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus …
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10/3/24
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It has been said that Rhode Island is served by the three “Fs.” The three Fs, of course, are Fenner Street, Fountain Street and Francis Street. Fenner Street is the home of the cathedral …
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9/26/24
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Jesus Christ certainly did not simply stumble into his final agony and wretched death. Nor was his betrayal by Judas, his abandonment by his disciples, his rejection by the Jewish authorities and his …
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9/19/24
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Martin Luther has been the coarse butt of Catholic jokes and the ready stock of Catholic scholarship for almost five hundred years. But not all the damaging talk and negative press is fully …
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9/12/24
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Persons may foolishly lose their dignity through sinning. The light-fingered store clerk, the unfaithful spouse, the dishonest professional, and, yes, the negligent clergyman have only themselves to …
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9/5/24
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While women could inherit queenship by birth in a few of the northern European nations like Britain, the Netherlands and Scandinavia, the Mediterrean and Eastern European nations tended to view …
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8/22/24
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St. John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) was indeed a grand preacher as well as great writer. Along with his profound theological utterances and writings, a few private prayers of the English …
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8/8/24
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Although St. John devotes five entire chapters of his Gospel account to the events and discourses constituting the Last Supper, the Beloved Disciple has chosen decidedly to omit the drama of the …
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7/25/24
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Readers of the Gospel accounts quickly realize that the early Christian saga occurs intermittently between Galilee on the north and Judea on the south of the Holy Land. Most of the action occurs in …
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7/9/24
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A rustic chapel has served the summer community at Matunuck for decades. And now, as Rhode Islanders leave the chill of the Blackstone Valley and other spots north for the comforts of the shore line, …
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6/27/24
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The Second Vatican Council (1962-65) neatly coincided with the political, social and psychological upheaval that gripped the Western World in the middle of the last century. The Beatles from Great …
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6/27/24
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