News - Put Out Into the Deep RSS Feed

Education plays a significant role in securing a brighter future for our young people. A Catholic education is especially valuable with its focus on the whole child in goodness, truth and beauty.

Robert Hugh Benson was the son of the Archbishop of Canterbury who converted to the Catholic faith and became a priest. He also was a prolific writer of fiction.

Sainthood is not a prize for good behavior. Saintliness, or rather, holiness, is something deeper – something even more profound than proper and moral conduct. 

During October, a special event has been taking place in Rome. Three years ago, Pope Francis called for a worldwide consultation that would culminate this month with what he called a “Synod on Synodality.” So, what is it all about? What is a synod, a synod of bishops, specifically? 

Wine holds a special place in the Catholic imagination. Throughout the Bible, wine represents God’s gift to his people, and Jesus even promises that such a great gift will be present in heaven (Lk 22:18).

On Sept. 28, I will have the privilege of ordaining the transitional deacon class of the North American College at Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Among this group of men from dioceses all over the United States, is one of our own – Stephen Jones.

There are many things that distinguish our Catholic faith and practice from other expressions of Christian faith and certainly from the dominant secular faith of our culture. 

On Aug. 28 we celebrate the feast day of one of the most intriguing and well-known saints on the calendar: Saint Augustine; a product of the Church of the 4th century. 

Atop Mount Tabor, in the Holy Land, stands the Church of the Transfiguration – built on the traditional site of the mystery the Church celebrates each year on Aug. 6. It was designed by Twentieth-Century Italian architect Antonio Barluzzi in 1924.

July 28 will mark 42 years since Blessed Stanley Rother gave his life for the Gospel and his parishioners while serving in the Oklahoma mission in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala. 

Catholics were a very small minority in the American colonies at the time of the American Revolution. Of the two million British colonists, only 2 percent were Catholic. Most of the Catholic population was settled in the colony of Maryland (Mary’s Land, founded by Catholics). 

Hall of Fame quarterback Archie Manning knows the value of fatherhood. The father of three sons – two of whom were NFL quarterbacks – understands the value of fatherhood because of what happened to his own father, Buddy.

Since my arrival in 2011, one of my persistent prayers has been for a New Pentecost for the Church in central and western Oklahoma. 

In the final weeks of the Easter Season, we are celebrating an important yet difficult mystery of our faith. Compared to the shocking truths we celebrate in the Lord’s passion, death and resurrection, Jesus’ ascension is less accessible at face value. 

What does it mean to belong to the Catholic Church? To be a member of the Church?  Is it membership in the sense of belonging to a club or a political party, that is, something that we can join and leave as we please? Though many Catholics may consider it so, our baptism has more durable consequences.  

On April 19, 1995, the Wednesday following Easter, a bomb strategically placed in front of the Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City extinguished the lives of 168 people, many of them children in the building’s day care center.

Christ is Risen! Alleluia!  Another Lenten season has concluded with the joyful celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ at Easter. Lent provided an opportunity for us to reflect on our deepest identity as human beings, as children of God, and particularly as Catholics. 

It is common for people to express their intense interests as something they are “passionate about.” Someone can be passionate about golf or food or the Oklahoma City Thunder or exercise. For each of these passions, there is something deep within us that moves us to action.

This week, throughout the world, people will be celebrating the feast day of Saint Patrick, marked by different cultural practices from the way we dress to the things we eat and drink.  

We have begun our Lenten journey toward Easter. Since it’s a spiritual journey – a journey of faith – the destination is not a physical one.