Melanie Rigney's Blog, page 116

When the Legend Becomes Fact…

Note: On Fridays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

You know what today is: December 13. The feast day of St. Lucy of Syracuse. You remember her.

I grew up in an area of the country where most people’s ancestors hailed from Scandinavia. And at this time of year, I was sorry not to be Swedish with blond braids crossed at the top of my head. That seemed to be a prerequisite for making or distributing the delicious St...

Hello, 4:15 a.m.

A week from today, 4:15 a.m. and I are going to resume our annual nine-day relationship. “Friendship” would be too strong a word. Some days, I’ll leap out of bed; some days, I’ll groan out loud.

Yes, it’s that time again, time for the Filipino Simbang Gabi/Misa de Gallo (“Mass of the Rooster”) novena that one of my parishes, St. Charles Borromeo in Arlington, Virginia, hosts every December 16-24. Mass starts at 5 a.m. On a slow weekday, we’ll get 150 to 200 people; on weekends, people will dri...

Keeping Busy in the Way that Refreshes

Note: On Fridays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

So often during Advent, we think about making time for everything: shopping. Wrapping. Cooking. Baking. Making dinner or plane or car rental reservations. It’s all about us, and our friends and family.

God, the very reason for the season, gets pushed to the bottom of the list except perhaps for weekly church attendance. And we don’t always pay much attention even...

On the Nightstand: December

I’ve got daily Advent resources galore on my nightstand, including Living Faith’s Advent edition and The Little Blue Book. But in the leadup to the season, I’ve been reading Go Forth with Hearts on Fire, a 64-page pastoral letter from our bishop, Paul S. Loverde.

Go Forth includes questions for discussion and thought, and gems such as this: “Prayer is far more than a thing or an activity to be worked into the calendar, as if it were soccer practice or a PTA meeting. It must take primacy over e...

Being Christ in Our Lives: Meredith Gould

They don’t come much funnier, more opinionated, or more ecumenical than my friend Meredith Gould. You may know Meredith for her expertise in church communications, as witnessed by her books The Social Media Gospel: Sharing the Good News in New Ways and The Word Made Fresh: Communicating Church and Faith Today.

Meredith was raised Jewish,spent time in a yoga ashram, hung out with Pentecostal Christians, received confirmation in the Roman Catholic church about ten years ago, and includes St. Mar...

Of Endings and Beginnings

Note: On Fridays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

And here we are, with one more day (or two, depending on when you read this) to go in ordinary time. On Sunday, Advent begins and we move to the Year A readings, moving from the current Gospel of Luke to the Gospel of Matthew.

It’s a time of endings and beginnings in other aspects of our lives too: we wonder if this will be the last Christmas we have our parents o...

Rededicating the Sanctuary

Note: On Fridays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

Who or what do you think of when you hear the word “enemy”?

Maybe it’s that person at work or in a volunteer organization who continually undercuts you or backstabs you. We probably all daydream of those people being out of our lives once and for all, and how perfect things would be. But we know that’s not likely, really, and so we try to figure out ways to limit...

The Quest for Perfection

Note: On Fridays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

It’s getting to be the time of year that we look for and celebrate perfection. We look for the perfect wine to go with the perfect turkey and the perfect pumpkin pie. And then it’s on to the perfect gifts for our friends and loved ones. And, often, after exhaustive Internet or magazine research or consultation with aficionados, we find what passes for perfection....

Of Squandering and Wastefulness

Note: On Fridays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

It wasn’t that the “dishonest” steward had stolen from the master or overcharged the debtors. Rather, the New American Bible notes on this parable, in which the steward is ultimately applauded by the discharging master for removing his commission from the debtors’ bills,tell us, “The dishonesty of the steward consisted in the squandering of his master’s property...

On the Nightstand: November

Earlier this year, a work colleague gave me a signed copy ofRebuilt: Awakening the Faithful, Reaching the Lost, and Making Church Matter, a how-to book of sorts co-authored by the Rev. Michael White, pastor of my friend’s suburban Baltimore parish.

I’m finally getting to the book now as my church’s Pastoral Council is reading it and parishioners are being asked for feedback. So far, lots of food for thought, including: “Sure, lost people might be shallow and unsure in their faith. … But, at so...