Most of us are proud and grateful to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands… Though we only know a fragment of the sacrifices made by our forebears and are, on the flipside, unaware of the extent of cruelty that others doled out […]

We love the Olympics!  Even in odd years, even in odd circumstances, we take up the cry: faster, higher, stronger.  Our innate desire is to always do better. According to records, the ancient Olympics began around 776 BCE and continued at four-year intervals for more than a thousand year (until 393, current era); the modern […]

Victor Hugo once said: “A church is God between four walls.”  Churches attempt to capture God’s essence and carry out His work here on earth.  Churches are good things, and I am blessed to serve one in which people’s lives are enhanced and their journey of faith is strengthened.  I personally believe that the world […]

As we live through ordinary encounters, we are periodically struck by extraordinary events that forever change us.  When Stevie Nicks, singer with the famous rock band Fleetwood Mac, wrote the lyrics to Landslides in the mid-1970s she was thinking of her father who, at that time, was facing life-threatening surgery, while she also contemplated a […]

When I began this blog, “Charged With Saint Charles” four years ago, it was for several reasons.  One reason was that my nearly thirty years of service in Jackson County had ended and I came to the northland as if it were a foreign land—people suggested that this would be a good means to stay […]

We admire, honor, and love our American forbears because they are heroes.  They were also contributors and builders far more than they were critics or complainers; and we admire that, too.  When they faced oppression from the British monarchy or hardships from cultivating the land or struggles in forming a democracy, they creatively found ways […]

Like a Silver Linings Playbook my experience at Saint Charles Borromeo (SCB) Parish is a blessed, life-giving, grace.  But it took several years for me to realize it.  When I arrived in 2016, leaving a parish that was twice its size and highly impactful, filled with incredibly successful, optimistic, and happy people, and a large […]

In a recent channel-surf search for mindless television entertainment, I came across The Waterboy.  You might recall some of the preposterous and comical scenes in which Adam Sandler as the Waterboy learns about life from his Mama, played by Kathy Bates.  She tries to indoctrinate him to her way of thinking: “Foosball is the devil…School […]

Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI, once said: “A healthy soul must do two things for us.  First, it must put some fire in our veins, keep us energized, vibrant, living with zest and filled with hope, as we sense that life is, ultimately, beautiful and worth living.  Second, a healthy soul must keep us fixed together.  […]

President Biden often speaks about fighting for the soul of America.  For him, our soul’s core has compassion for immigrants and other vulnerable people and respect for other nations.  Similarly, American bishops fight for the soul of Catholicism.  For them, like for most Catholics, at the core are issues of life that protect the most […]