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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When Moses was standing barefoot before the burning bush, getting his marching orders against Pharaoh, he asked, “Who shall I say sent me?”
The Voice then identifies itself as Yahweh: …
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By Mark Saucier
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7/7/22
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I was in a vain denial.
Then I realized that most of our dinner conversations consisted of me saying, “What?”
And then my pretense backfired when deafly nodding with a big grin to a …
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By Mark Saucier
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6/23/22
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“Our thoughts and prayers are with you.”
It’s a genuine response by some unable to say anything else in the face of another’s pain.
It may be cliché, but it is …
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By Mark Saucier
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6/8/22
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“... Do unto others as you would have them do to you ...”
Familiar, but these words in Matthew were not the source of the Golden Rule. It can be traced more than 4,000 years, …
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By Mark Saucier
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5/26/22
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As a kid, I knew that St. Blaise was the patron saint of throat ailments because his blessing was on my birthday, and I narrowly escaped the horror of being named Blaise.
After that, I never …
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By Mark Saucier
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5/11/22
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An iconic image in Celtic spirituality is the apostle John reclining next to Jesus at the Last Supper.
According to the Gospel of John, the apostle lays his head on the chest of Jesus to look up …
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By Mark Saucier
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4/28/22
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