Foot-washer

A Reflection Following the Death of a Student's Parent.  I have had to offer a variation on this reflection too many times in my work as a campus minister.  This is your life, joys and sorrow mingled, one succeeding the other. Catherine McAuley’s Letter to Frances Warde May 28, 1841 The hard truth about being alive is that if we live long enough, we will experience the death of several people that we love.   Seeing these loved ones die is incredibly painful and almost impossible to make sense of. Why does a good God allow people to suffer?   Why do people have to die in the first place? What purpose could it possible serve.          There are not good answers to these questions.   I have spent a long time wresting with them, myself, and the only answer I find satisfying is this: we do not suffer alone.   Our pain troubles God so much that he came to be with us.   God took the form of a human being and told us that...

  Reflection on the Death (Transitus) of St. Francis. Offered at Our Lady of the Woods chapel at Bellarmine University on October 2, 2014.  Readings: https://www.franciscanpenancelibrary.com/transitus-of-saint-francis I have come to know St. Francis through the Franciscans here at Bellarmine and through reading about his life.   I would like to share some of the lessons that I have learned about his life and death. St. Francis teaches us how to die well.   If you were able to able to the Campus Ministry office today, you received a pot filled with Brother or Sister Plant.   This afternoon in the quad, the friars blessed our pets, which we call, “Brother Dog,” “Sister Cat,” or if you are my wife, “Sister Hermit Crab.”   This evening, as our prayer began, perhaps you noticed Sister Moon glowing down at us.   St. Francis praised God through all of these creatures and creations of God. Tonight we also recognize and commemorate the one that he ca...