By Gary Topping– “Are you sure there isn’t some kind of indulgence available to those of us who actually get our Advent wreath up by the first Sunday of Advent”?…
Posts published by “mobrien@joneswaldo.com”
Now that we are in the Advent Season, my friends Alexa, Siri, and I had a long discussion about religion and spirituality the other day. Well, maybe it was not…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– The recent headline in The Christian Science Monitor, discussing a survey of millions of books, periodicals, and other records that now have been digitized, startled me.…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– I hesitate to disrupt the warm feelings of the upcoming holiday feasts and festivals, but something must be said. Gravy is the Rodney Dangerfield of Thanksgiving…
Michael Patrick O’Brien– Legend and tradition say that St. Patrick used the image of the shamrock to illustrate and explain the mystery of the Holy Trinity to the Irish. It’s…
By Jean Welch Hill– The normally lackluster midterm elections have been uncharacteristically exciting this year. While the choices for voters have included numerous important initiatives and races, the increasing rise…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Last Sunday at church I prayed for comfort from what seemed like the affliction of current events. Our parish priest responded to my plea with onions…Dostoevsky’s…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– In about a dozen subterranean tunnels, far beneath the congested urban streets of Sicily’s largest city, reside some 2,000 citizens from all walks of Palermo life.…
By Gary Topping– “Have you been saved”? Growing up, as I did, on the southern Oregon coast in an environment heavily dominated by fundamentalist and evangelical Protestants, I have heard…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien With All Saints Day arriving later this week, I can timely note that it would be unusual for a Catholic to call herself or a colleague…