Author: Deacon Richard D. Shewman

We often think of the early Christian community in Jerusalem as being a model of the ideal Christian community. How is that community described in the Acts of the Apostles?…

Another important element of the secret to the success of Homeboy Industries is to realize that it is not about helping the suffering or doing for those in need.  Such…

There is a story told by the theologian Lawrence Cunningham, former chairman of the Theology Department at the University of Notre Dame, about a student who came to him to…

About a century ago a psychologist, Rudolph Otto, described an encounter with the transcendent as a depth experience, which was characterized by awe, as well as fascination. He called these…

Another politics related danger is becoming too strongly associated with one political party or another.  The difficulty in the US is that one political party is strongly associated with a…

Over the past few months I have been working my way through the Diocesan Pastoral Plan with my Along the Way reflections. This week I reached the point in the…

What endures isn’t the external but the internal. What endures is our character, as it is shaped by how we react to life circumstances and by the virtue that we…

The Tragic History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus is a play by Christopher Marlow, an Elizabethan playwright and contemporary of William Shakespeare. The play is based on…

The word “Catholic” means universal. which is frustratingly ambiguous. What exactly does universal mean? We argue that universal means every place. So the Catholic church is every place. Christians are to proclaim…

Years ago, I attended a conference for non-profit organizations from around the Pacific. The conference was held on the island of Morea in Tahiti. Living conditions were simple. The discussion…