Choices to make
May 10 2012
Father Breighner talks about life choices and exercising the body and the spirit.
Unconditional love
Apr 30 2012
Looks will fade over time. What will you be left with then?
Life after divorce and loss
Apr 19 2012
How many of us have risen from the dead? How many of us have gone on when we didn’t think we could go on? If you’ve lost a loved one through death, separation or divorce, you know about death. The annual conference sponsored by the Catholic Single Again Council of Baltimore is about new life.
Lessons on the meaning of Easter
Apr 05 2012
On Holy Saturday night, Johnny asked his mother if he could go to bed early. His mother asked him if he was sick, but he said he was only tired. Actually, he didn’t think he could tell his mother the real reason. He wanted to go to bed early so he could get up early to meet the Easter Bunny.
Another of God’s great mysteries
Mar 23 2012
I was talking to a young lady who was studying for a big test in medical school. She had been cutting up cadavers in her class, and the test required that she be able to identify various veins and muscles. She said that the test was so difficult because various tissues look so different from different bodies.
Avoid the seductive voice of the devil
Feb 23 2012
Few moments in the Scriptures are more poignant than Jesus confronting Satan in the desert. In our Lenten season of prayer, fasting and giving we see this scene as our own scene.
Wit & Wisdom: We win some, we lose some
Feb 01 2012
Since I often write my columns well in advance of their publication, it's difficult to be “timely” in my topics! For example, I'm writing this column the day after the Ravens’ loss to the Patriots. Right now this is a “hot” topic. In a few weeks it may just be a game we fans want to forget.
Lasting love
Jan 12 2012
I know that the church’s official Christmas season is over with the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, but I wanted to squeeze one more bit of the Christmas season for us.
Celebrate the time after Christmas
Jan 05 2012
We Christians get a pretty good deal at Christmas time. We get two Christmas seasons! We get the retail Christmas, the time before Christmas, with all the lights and decorations and songs. This is the season to get people to buy things. It’s sort of a secular season of Advent, but, rather than focusing on the preparing for the coming of Christ, it focuses on buying things.
Let God make us one with each other
Dec 15 2011
It’s been said that only Francis Scott Key knows all the verses to the National Anthem. Most of us are lucky to know only the first verse, sung mostly at sporting events.
Allow God to reign this season
Dec 08 2011
The season of Advent, somewhat similar to Lent, call us to repentance – in Greek, metanoia. The literal translation of the Greek is “to change how we think.” How might we think differently this Advent?
Forever alive in the presence of God
Dec 01 2011
By the time this column appears most of the leaves will be gone. But right now I'm watching the few remaining leaves fall to the ground. Here and there, there are still trees with bright red leaves on them – burning bushes, so to speak, of the presence of God.
Take a ‘white gloves’approach to new missal
Nov 23 2011
Way back in the 1960s, when all the various changes were taking place in the church after Vatican II, there were countless gatherings explaining the various changes. At one meeting, whenever a question was asked about why a particular change was made, the speaker always replied, “It’s the work of the Holy Spirit.” Having heard this comment over and over, one lady finally raised her hand and said: “Well, the Holy Spirit sure says a lot of things the Holy Ghost never said.”
Wit & Wisdom: I feel the earth move
Nov 17 2011
So where were you when the Aug. 23 earthquake hit? I was hearing confessions at Oak Crest in a room off the chapel. The whole room and chapel shook. After that, no one else came to confession! I guess people figured: “Don’t go in there! What kind of penance is Father Joe handing out?”