26
06, 2015
17
06, 2015
Sons of Thunder
By a strange turn of events, I have to spend a day in Istanbul while trying to get home from Spain—even though it's the opposite direction. The reason this is especially strange is because these two countries were evangelized by the brothers James and John, sons of a Galilean fisherman named Zebedee. These two men became first century Apostles of Jesus Christ. Jesus nicknamed them "Sons of Thunder" because of their attitude towards life. After His resurrection, Our Lord sent St. James to Spain and St. John to Turkey (with His own Blessed Mother.) I flew from James' land to John's land today, and I'm tryıng to navigate a keyboard set up for the Turkish language at 9pm here in the city [...]
2
05, 2015
Fire of India
Y'all know I'm in India, but I haven't told y'all about why I came to India for the first time last autumn. It was to help with a new video on the lives of three saints who came to India (St. Thomas the Apostle, St. Francis Xavier and Mother Teresa.) The short movie was produced by my friend Anand and created by my friend Keenan. My job was apparently to sit on the set and drink chai tea. I was very good at that, and good at little else. But I'm happy to say it's going to be released on Ask a Bishop, so here's the short preview of what [...]
1
05, 2015
Sr. Nirmala, Missionary of Charity
Sr. Nirmala Joshi MC is found to the left in the picture above. It's taken on 14 March 1997, the day that Mother Teresa and a closed-door vote of about 100 sisters made Sr. Nirmala the Superior General of the 5,000 Missionaries of Charity world-wide. CNN took notice in this article because a Hindu-convert to Catholicism took over the most rapidly-expanding religious order of the 20th century. (Up to that point, her CV was already impressive, as Mother Teresa’s co-founder of the MCs and the foundress of the Contemplative Branch of the Missionaries of Charity in 1976.) Now Sr. Nirmala is 81 years old. She had a heart attack about [...]
28
04, 2015
Jesus and Religion Part III
For a few weeks, I’m living in the Muslim quarter of Kolkata. I wear my Roman collar around here, and what's peculiar is that I rarely get snarky looks from the swarms of Muslims and Hindus packed into this city. Actually, I was shocked at how much respect the Muslims gave me on Qatar Airlines even as I wore my cassock. On the other hand, a certain generation of Catholics in the United States treat me very differently when they see the cassock. That generation of Americans always stops me with a unconvincing rictus to tell me some combo of the following: 1. I’m glad that what you’re doing “works for [...]