Mark Saucier
65 results total, viewing 1 - 20
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Holy Week begins with an ironic scene.
An itinerant preacher from the countryside is placed on a donkey, lauded with palm branches and hosana-ed by the crowd as their conquering king.
The …
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By Mark Saucier
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3/29/23
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Once a month, I meet a friend for breakfast. We’ve only known each other a few years, but there was an immediate bond that has deepened with time.
We talk about news, sports, families, but …
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By Mark Saucier
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3/16/23
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When I was a kid, Lent was the time for talk about sin.
Perhaps it was in their teaching contract, but the good nuns invariably told us, in their own veiled words, about the seven …
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By Mark Saucier
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3/2/23
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I caught the news before bed — a 7.8 earthquake rocked parts of Tukey and Syria.
Headlines are filled with once-frightening words of epic storms, tornadoes, hurricanes and tsunamis. What was …
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By Mark Saucier
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2/15/23
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It was another silly question popping up in a wandering conversation.
“What superpower would you like to have?”
Avoiding the selfish fun things like invisibility or telepathy, it …
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By Mark Saucier
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2/1/23
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It was a greedy, aggressive cancer.
Not content to feast on his lungs, it metastasized, seeking total conquest of his body.
It seemed to win. We had his funeral yesterday: a royal …
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By Mark Saucier
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1/19/23
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As many as 45% of Americans make New Year’s resolutions.
As few as 8% keep them. (Most of these are skinny, self-driven perfectionists.)
The past two years, the most popular (and …
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By Mark Saucier
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1/5/23
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On Dec. 24, 1914, small Christmas trees and lanterns appeared on the parapets of the muddy Ger-man trenches of the western front.
In the darkness, voices of scared and homesick young men joined in …
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By Mark Saucier
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12/14/22
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It is an Advent story, though I didn’t realize it at the time.
At first, I thought it was just about a man who had every reason to wonder what God was thinking.
He was a Black man, born …
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By Mark Saucier
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12/7/22
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Thanksgiving is a busy day.
Hours in the kitchen preparing those favorite foods. Travel to make it home for that big meal, or multiple meals for many.
There’s setting tables, doing …
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By Mark Saucier
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11/23/22
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The day began with heavy clouds lingering after the night’s rain.
I had a text from a friend whose husband has just begun hospice. She would let us know when they completed their visit, and …
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By Mark Saucier
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11/10/22
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“What is the purpose of belief if even God can’t put the world back the way you worshipped it?”
This is the question a character in Shubangi Swarup’s novel Latitudes of …
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By Mark Saucier
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10/27/22
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It was early when I came downstairs. Just before I reached for the switch, something across the room caught my eye.
There was a single patch of light. At first, I thought it was a message alert on …
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By Mark Saucier
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10/12/22
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Years ago, a friend gave me a copy of a lithograph of St. Lazarus — the one held in the bosom of Abraham, not the Lazarus awakened by Jesus from a four-day death nap.
There’s a church …
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By Mark Saucier
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9/28/22
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If you find yourself in a group of inmates and the conversation starts to lag, ask them about their grandmothers.
I’ve seen hardened men come to tears talking about their grandmas, many of …
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By Mark Saucier
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9/14/22
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There is an old story in the Jewish Hasidic tradition of the Rabbi Eizik, son of Yekel.
He was a poor rabbi who lived in Cracow.
One night, Rabbi Eizik had a dream. In this dream, he was led to …
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By Mark Saucier
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8/31/22
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I have a friend who could have been a great pastor, but he spent his professional life as a machinist instead.
He never went to seminary, barely made it through high school.
The Navy was going …
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By Mark Saucier
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8/17/22
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“Can the sister get an Amen?”
She’d get it, too, from little Black kids to aging white bishops. A Franciscan whose death at 52 cheated the Church, Sister Thea Bowman spoke in a …
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By Mark Saucier
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8/3/22
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“Can the sister get an Amen?”
She’d get it, too, from little Black kids to aging white bishops. A Franciscan whose death at 52 cheated the Church, Sister Thea Bowman spoke in a …
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By Mark Saucier
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8/3/22
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An old Roman philosopher said, “There is no easy way from earth to the stars.”
Nearly 2,000 years after Seneca’s death, we still haven’t made it, but we are getting …
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By Mark Saucier
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7/20/22
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