But there is a deeper boredom that is really a disease of our time. As 20th century author Reinhardt Kuhn observed, boredom “is not one theme among others; it is the dominant theme … a modern plague.”
Relativism is the philosophy that says you have your truth and I have mine. This is the lie of our age — a philosophy that claims there is no objective truth outside ourselves.
Over the past 25 years, one of the most common prayer request I hear deals with a son or daughter who has left the church, or a husband or parent who no longer attends Mass, or a grandchild who has drifted from the faith.
We were the 1960s folks with freedom and love. How did we end up like this?
The following is from the witness talk Father Michael Shields gave in August during the World Meeting of Families in Ireland.
So would you die for your faith? We may never know that answer but it is being asked many times over in the Near and Middle East and in Africa and India.
A young man discerning his future wrote me to ask a question: “How do you know you are called to the priesthood.”
The created purpose of a smart phone is to communicate. So if all apps were destroyed and all you had left was a simple phone, would it still be a phone? Yes. And would it meet its purpose? Yes.
Everything changes when we have this deep friendship with Jesus. But if we don’t have a deep personal friendship with him, our priesthood is dead.
Pope Francis is asking for a public faith, not a private one that only serves oneself. You are not to become holy for yourself but for others. We are called to preach, teach, defend and share the joy of the Gospel.