Views

Service is about willingness, not worthiness; the church needs to be willing to actually sit down and create a plan for the creation of formal lay ministries, and then do it.

When people need help, it is our responsibility to offer an ear to listen, a heart to empathize and a readiness to act.

Praying one of these “Prayer After Elections’ encourages civility, seeking common ground.

That Donald Trump should re-enter the Oval Office as a uniter, not a divider, is almost certainly too much to ask. But he will enter as a second-term president, which means that, if he so chooses, he can spend four years governing rather than campaigning.

As a Christian, I pray two creeds, The Apostles’ Creed and The Nicene Creed. But I also pray another creed which grounds me in some deep truths which are not always sufficiently recognized as inherent in our Christian creeds. This creed, given in the Epistle to the Ephesians, is stunningly brief and simply reads: There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God who is Father of us all.

When looking at the voting process through a Catholic lens, a distinct call to action arises with a centralized focus on the dignity of each person and the Common Good of all God’s creation.

It’s good to think about purgatory as we approach All Souls’ Day — Nov. 2, the day after All Saints’ Day, when the church reminds us to take special note of loved ones, family and friends who may now be in purgatory yearning to be on their way to heaven.

Sometimes, we forget that even the greatest hallmarks of our faith — the most common ways we practice what we believe — didn’t always exist. The “Hail Mary” is a case in point.