I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago with some Polish immigrants. We were talking about parishes and I am sure they don’t know the history of national parishes here in Chicago. Maybe you’ve never heard of a “national parish” either. I’m old enough to remember some of this history, and I thought I’d…
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What? I guess thinking about thinking is philosophy. Or metacognition. Talk about a big word! In her re-issued book on thinking (Mindset), Carol S. Dweck writes about a couple of different kinds of mental structures we might have in our heads. She calls them “mindsets,” and in the book she describes what she calls a…
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A couple of months ago someone asked me what culture I identified with. It may seem like an odd question, but it made sense to me. You see, I’ve been working with Spanish speakers for my whole priesthood (38 years). I’ve been a missionary priest even though I’ve been working in Chicago the whole time. …
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A little philosophy is a good thing for this week, I think! There was a Franciscan Friar who lived in Occam in England around 1347, and his writing lead people to name his theory “Occam’s razor.” In a nutshell, the razor is used to cut away excess complications. In other words, if there’s a choice…
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At St. Adalbert Parish, one of the real treasures is the Pieta that is currently located in a side altar near the front of the church on the right. This statue is a copy of the famous one in Rome, made by Michelangelo and currently on display at St. Peter’s Basilica. If you’ve ever had…
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Did you ever hear the saying, “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop?” The origin is in the book of proverbs. Literally, the proverb goes like this, A scoundrel plots evil, and on their lips it is like a scorching fire. A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends. A…
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Last week, children from our community joined activists who want to stop permits for industrial polluters in our neighborhood. Why? Because Pilsen and the southwest side of Chicago are crowded with factories and trucks. Some businesses are doing honorable business and are responsible. There are others who are not and who are polluting our air.…
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My stepmother sometimes says she’s “busier than flies on horseshit.” It’s a striking image, and I think of it once in a while when I run across someone who’s really busy. There’s an interesting question lying just under the surface when we look at how busy we are. One way to ask the question is…
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In a recent article in Church Life Journal, Timothy O’Malley wrote about the difficulty Americans have in understanding Catholicism. It’s hard to do justice to the article in a page long note, and if you want to see the whole thing, click here. Here’s an attempt at a summary. O’Malley writes that we Americans think…
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Who are we? One of the ways we might describe ourselves is as members of communities. Or at least we used to be that. Wendell Berry has been doing some remarkable writing on the nature of communities and in an essay he published a few years ago he ties together concern for the environment, civil…
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