The Final Battle: Marriage and Family The Final Battle: Marriage and Family
In Mary’s month in Joseph’s year let us “Go to Joseph and Mary”
By Mark Drogin
Detail from Holy Family (the Doni Tondo) by Michelangelo
Special devotions to Mary are observed throughout the month of May; our Blessed Mother appeared on May 13, 1917, to three small children in Fatima, Portugal. She spoke to them and promised she would return; and so she returned each month until her final appearance on October 13. In this final appearance, thousands including many nonbelievers witnessed and testified to the “miracle of the sun”; notably, this appearance began with St. Joseph, the Husband of Mary, holding the Baby Jesus, and together Joseph and Jesus blessed the world.
Alberto Pizzoli/Pool Photo via AP
I try to shy away from covering religion, not because it’s not important…it is…but because if you are not part of a particular denomination, you can find yourself looking pig-ignorant and ridiculous, things to which no pundit should ever aspire unless they are working for The Bulwark, The Dispatch, or the North American Man-Boy Lincoln Association (h/t to Ace at Ace of Spades for that moniker). For instance, last week, someone named Beth Moore announced she was leaving the Southern Baptist. Convention. I was assured she was a
super important person whose exit portended grim times for the SBC. It was probably newsworthy, but I took a pass on it because a) I don’t belong to the SBC, and b) because of that, I didn’t feel comfortable discussing it.
As my sophomore year of high school began in 1960, the country was buzzing with the coming election. An Irish American was running for president! My Irish relatives rallied to the call and even my Italian family members supported the candidate. He might be Irish but he was Catholic too! When John F. Kennedy’s campaign came to Philadelphia, my father was one of the official photographers. Proudly, I accompanied him to the events and watched as he took pictures of the man who would become the 35th President of the United States. I still have the negatives, some of my most treasured heirlooms.
Note:
This account of the Catholic martyr saints who died in the Wuchang district of Wuhan, China, was delivered after the Holy Mass offered by Bishop Thomas Daly at the Our Lady of Lourdes Cathedral, Spokane, WA. Divine Mercy Sunday, 19 April 2020; it was originally posted at CWR on that same day.
Providence often carries us in unexpected directions. When I was in Wuhan, China, some time ago conducting research on the martyr saints of that area, I was certain that almost no one from my native U.S. had ever heard of Wuhan, and I also thought that they never would hear of Wuhan. I was wrong. “Wuhan” is now in the common lexicon of nearly every person on earth.
Lee Announces Spring 2021 Encore Classes Thursday, December 24, 2020
Lee University’s Encore Program, which offers people age 60 and over the opportunity to take university courses, has announced its spring 2021 offerings, consisting of both in-person and online options.
With a fee of $25, Encore students may choose up to two of the following courses: All You Need is Love; Biblical Civilizations; Europe’s Long Nineteenth Century: 1815-1914; Fitness Class; Grief and Loss; Hello Darlin’: This is the New South; Is Fake News Real? How to Tell When Organizations are Skewing the Truth; Joint Conditioning; Graphic Design/Photoshop Basics; Microsoft Basics: Word, Excel & PowerPoint; Oil Painting Beginner to Intermediate Level; Psychology’s Four Biggest Ideas; Reclaiming the Discarded Image: Self and Cosmos from the Middle Ages Today; Responding to an Emergency: First Aid, Search and Rescue; The Book of Judges: An Enduring Biblical Message for a Modern World; The Sacraments