“To everything there is a season.” Familiar words, a passage from the Old Testament that you’ll hear in a homily, often in a eulogy, sometimes in politicians’ rhetoric. There it was in the daily newspaper Sept. 23, on that page dedicated to deep, thoughtful, insightful perspectives on our lives and times. No, it wasn’t the […]
Mary Adamski: Jesse, meet Matt
Conquering addiction requires friends, family, saints We celebrated a milestone in the life of a beloved elder a couple weeks ago by following his longstanding wishes. There was no party, no gifts, no spreading the word so more people would chime in. It’s an anniversary he never announces in advance and I don’t believe he […]
Mary Adamski: Peace be with you
Pentecost usually charges me up. The idea of the Holy Spirit taking hold of my brain and expanding my understanding of my world with God in it, the imagery of tongues of fire alighting on all Christians through the ages, not just the first few; I can track that back to a brilliant teacher in […]
Mary Adamski: The greatest of these is charity
Expect another “ta-DAH” announcement any day from city hall about yet another solution to the homeless problem. Oops, do I mean homeless issue? Has problem become politically incorrect? I don’t expect another of those city government lightning strikes to replace tents with flower planters, or haul the last pitiful possessions of people away as trash; […]
Mary Adamski: Saint potential in blue denim
Visions of saints will be before us this weekend as the Catholic Church bestows that title on two former popes. We’ll envision them in white robes because that’s how we saw them on the television screen and other media in recent history, Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005, and Pope John XXIII, who […]
Mary Adamski: Listening — It’s an act of love
How did they tell the story later, Peter, James and John, I wonder, Good Jewish men, they’d been raised on the story from centuries earlier about Moses going to a mountaintop and hearing Yahweh himself establishing his covenant with Israel. There the three humble fishermen were, on another mountaintop when they witnessed Jesus, joined by […]
Mary Adamski: With Lent, thoughts of food
Something about Ash Wednesday brings out the child in us. We’re going to hear the familiar Gospel account of Jesus telling the disciples not to flaunt their praying, almsgiving and fasting to get public attention. But we’re going to hope Father swishes a good dark gob of ashes on our forehead so we can walk […]
Reconciliation needs more than apologies
January certainly lives up to its name. We inherited the word from the ancient Romans who started the calendar year commemorating Janus, a mythological fellow depicted as having two faces since he looked to the past and to the future. He was the god of transitions, presiding over the beginning and ending of conflict. That […]
Mary Adamski: The Lord is coming and the house is clean. Halleluia!
The house always had to be shining clean for Christmas and since Mom ruled, we the children took the vacuum cleaner nozzle into the deepest corners and the dustcloths to the tops of all those many framed things on the walls. That wasn’t quite going where no kid had been before, but it was shifting […]
Mary Adamski: Battlelines drawn
Stories and images of fighting the enemy to his knees or his death, smiting those who oppose us, making them feel the hurt, are imbedded in our brains, whether you tune into the world news, are a movie buff or play video games. Smash them, thrash them, count the wins, count the bodies. For a […]
