The Musical Priest

Jesuit Father Thomas Reese recently published an insightful piece entitled " The church is more than just the pope " where he underscores something many of us fail to forget: we cannot put the weight of Catholicism's future on the pope's shoulders. If there is anything akin to an authentic "Francis effect," it will not be a singularly herculean feat of bearing the weight of an institution. The effect will be for all of us to "go and do likewise" and serve as we see him serve. Last semester, I was privileged to take a course with Lisa Sowle Cahill , a renowned ethicist and moral theologian here at Boston College. One student set before himself the task of combing through the Pope's allocutions and writings to try to piece together some sense of the Holy Father's "Theology of the Cross." In an almost casual aside, Lisa drew attention to the Pope's pectoral cross. One of the first things people notice is that it's not ma...

If you're looking for a counter-cultural message, look no further than today's Gospel reading . In four short verses, the Evangelist Mark presses on two particularly sensitive areas. First, John the Baptist acknowledges something difficult for most, if not all of us, to say: it's not all about me . Second, God affirms something of Jesus that many of us long to hear said of ourselves: You are my beloved ... with you I am well pleased . I'll be the first to admit that there's an ever-present temptation to try to make all things center upon me. When community obligations prove inconvenient, I groan and say, "I have better things to do." When others are given praise, or acquire honors, I might smile outwardly but, inwardly, I sneer or downplay the person's accomplishment. My spiritual lifeline, however, has proved to be my accordion. Not that the accordion is a talisman able to ward off self-centeredness and resentment, of course. But the many hours I...