Steve Jobs said ” Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.” So true. Most of us are far too comfortable with mediocrity or “that’s good enough.” Because of this, we get a life that never is pressed to discover its potential, the possibilities. What a waste.
And…
Fr. Barnabas Powell
“Um, sorry, what did you say?” That’s the response I get many times when I’m talking to my younger brother. His hearing took a beating years ago when he was working at a car body repair shop. The steady noise combined with his serious work ethic to damage his hearing, so now, I have to repeat…
“We are of one mind about this.” I heard his words and I understood each word and its meaning, but I had never heard this put this way before – “of one mind.” What did he mean? But, hey, I was a kid of 22 and the situation was such that I was hoping he…
Growing up as a young man in the 1970’s meant I heard some of the best music in the world! One song I remember that got the whole car singing along was the anthem “United we Stand” by the Brotherhood of Man. The chorus was “For united we stand, divided we fall. And if our…
St. Anthony the Great once said “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘You are mad; you are not like us.'”
Of course, that “time” St. Anthony warned us about has been with us since our mother and father believed…
The word gets thrown around a lot today. “Love” seems to be everybody’s goal, and it seems to have been this way forever. I’m reading a great book now called “How Dante Can Save Your Life” by Rod Dreher, and in it, Dreher gives me some wonderful background on the author of the great poem…
When I was just learning about the Ancient Faith, I was struck by the wisdom of fasting from certain foods. You see, I had been raised to think that a fast was no food at all, just water. And I would hear stories of Pentecostal pastors "fasting" for a month or even 40 days and…
Why do people stop practicing the faith? Why are we seeing so many young people abandon the faith of their youth? Countless studies have been done trying to answer this question. Every time I travel to speak around the country in parishes big and small, I get asked this question as well. And there are…