I’m blessed to know medical doctors, professors and students who want to integrate Catholic faith into medicine. Such a desire makes sense, given how Catholicism assisted in many ways at the birth of modern medicine.
Father John Bayer
One of the most laudable questions I receive is about how to discern God’s will. A decision is easy to make when the choice is between something right and something wrong. But a decision can be difficult when the choice is between two goods and I have to discover the specific will God has for me. I recently read a great book on this topic, and I want to share its theses. The book is “Discerning the Will of God: An Ignatian Guide to Christian Decision Making” by Father Timothy Gallagher.
Every moment becomes a kind of sacrament, so to speak, since the treasures of grace lie concealed beneath what is very plain and visible.
For a while, I have been studying the topic of race in American and Catholic history. It is a difficult topic for obvious reasons, but it is also a rewarding one. In fact, I have been greatly edified learning about figures like Venerable Augustus Tolton, St. Katharine Drexel, Servant of God Thea Bowman and others. If you’re looking for a way into such stories, check out “Black Catholics on the Road to Sainthood.”
Plans are well underway for the 2024 Synod — that big meeting to advise the bishop about the spiritual, material and administrative situation of the Dallas Diocese. Essential to its success are the “listening sessions” now taking place: two years of honest and charitable dialogue for the good of the Church and her mission in the world.
Our world needs Christian faith. A book that proved this to me regarding the medical field is Losing Our Dignity: How Secularized Medicine is Undermining Fundamental Human Equality by Charles C. Camosy.
This Lent I’m studying the “wilderness” or “desert” in Scripture, and especially in the journey of Israel from Egypt to the Promised Land. The dangerous wild is a powerful image for the spiritual life, and it plays a large part in the lives of figures like Jacob, Moses, David, Elijah, John the Baptist and Jesus. What about in yours?
One of the shibboleths of our times is the word diversity. Our use of the word can easily signal our social, political and philosophical sympathies. It is ubiquitous in our culture, advertising and corporate life, and it is frequently portrayed as a moral value, one of the few claimed by our ostensibly secular society.