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The Deacon's Bench

I caught this on TV over the weekend. I almost did a spit-take.

“Especially in these times, I felt that people not only need education in the faith — we’ve always tried to do that — but they also need inspiration. I find that there is a lot of — I don’t want to call it quite hopelessness — but there’s a lot of distress out there around…

I caught this tidbit over at Googling God, and pass it on, for whatever it may be worth. It comes from a paper in Australia: Swine flu and Mexico’s recent earthquake had been the judgment of God for that country’s abortion laws, a visiting US priest told members of Canberra’s St Christopher’s Parish on Tuesday.…

Just in time for Mary’s month of May comes this little oddity from sunny California: A Mexican restaurant in this border town is drawing the curious and the faithful to see what some believe is a likeness of the Virgin Mary that appeared miraculously on a griddle. A cook at Las Palmas restaurant was the…

Ron Howard is continuing to fan the flames over the controversy surrounding his movie adaptation of Dan Brown’s “Angels & Demons.” The latest: Director Ron Howard claimed Sunday that the Vatican interfered with efforts to get permits to shoot certain scenes of his “Angels & Demons” religious thriller in Rome — a charge the Vatican…

And now, a little musical interlude for Good Shepherd Sunday. A favorite modern hymn of Your Humble Blogger, this is sung often at funerals. But it remains haunting and meaningful, no matter what the context. Shepherd Me, O God – Marty Haugen

This amazing news probably got little notice when it happened last week, but attention must be paid: The world’s oldest Benedictine monk died today at St. Meinrad Archabbey in St. Meinrad, Ind. Father Theodore Heck, 108, died in the monastery’s infirmary. Born Jan. 16, 1901 in Chariton, Iowa, Heck was ordained to the priesthood May…

Balloting is now underway for the fabled Cannonball Awards, and you can cast your vote over at The Crescat. Wouldn’t one of these look nice on my mantle?

Here, as a sentimental follow-up to yesterday’s link, I offer this poignant rendering of a familiar Irish ditty:

Leave it to The Anchoress to capture, beautifully, the power and poetry of what it means to wear the habit, on this World Day of Prayer for Vocations: In the late 1970’s I heard a teaching sister say that the shedding of religious habits was a good thing, because it emphasized that sisters were “nothing…
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