Dwight Longenecker's Blog, page 126

Why Doesn’t God Answer My Prayers?

Most of us know that simply praying for something you want is not the best way of praying. God is not a cosmic vending machine in which you put your prayer in the slot and the goodie you want drops into the tray at the bottom. Don’t get me wrong. God delights in any prayer [Read More...]

Fr Groeschel: Home for the Feast of St Francis

Fr Benedict Groeschel passed away last evening at 11pm. He went home for the Feast of St Francis. Kathy Schiffer recounts her memories of Fr Groeschel here. I met Fr Groeschel personally for the first time on a visit to New Jersey earlier this year. He was in a wheelchair, but alert and able to [Read More...]

Ten Things That Changed St Francis Forever…

…and can change you too. One of the things that makes St Francis so popular is that he was so utterly and completely converted. He was rooted and engrafted into Christ through several remarkable events that transformed him from the inside out. It is this profound and radical encounter with Christ that can also transform [Read More...]

Is Pope Francis Ditching the Conservatives?

This article by English priest Fr Mark Drew observes the goings on in Rome with an expert eye an informed view and a balanced conclusion. Is Pope Francis purging the church of the “Ratzingerians”? Is a modernist, liberal putsch underway? Fr Drew writes, It does seem at first sight as if several of those closest [Read More...]

Kieran Conry’s Failure

I wrote earlier in the week here about the resignation of Kieran Conry and was one of the few voices to say, “Hang on. Let’s not just brush this under the carpet with a sweet Christian, ‘Well we are all sinners, let’s forgive and forget and move on. Water under the bridge. Nothing more to [Read More...]

Make Room for Curmudgeons

This week has long been one of my favorites in the church year. Who can resist the sweetness, purity, power and goodness of all these saints and angels celebrated in one week! September ends with the celebration of the great heavenly warrior St Michael, and he is followed a day later by St Therese of [Read More...]

Classic Glass in a New Church

Today they came and took our stained glass away. For a couple of years it has been stored in our parish garage. King Richard’s Ecclesiastical Salvage firm took a fantastic set of stained glass windows out of St Mary Morning Star Church in Pittsfield, Massachussets, shipped to Greenville in crates and stored them in our [Read More...]

Clash of the Cardinals: The Burke and Kaspar Slugfest

Cardinal Kaspar and Cardinal Burke have come out slugging in the debate over divorce and remarriage in the church. In this video clip Kaspar expresses the liberal, “pastoral” view that a remarriage can have many positive virtues, that the church is to be loving and accepting and that the individual conscience in these matters is supreme. Meanwhile, [Read More...]

Therese the Little Warrior

Here is my article for National Catholic Register on the astounding things that happened in the first world war. She said she would spend her heaven doing good on earth, and her wish to be a warrior was also fulfilled. She once had a prophetic dream: “I went to sleep for a few moments during [Read More...]

The Day I Met St Therese

I was an Anglican priest the summer I met St Therese of Lisieux. I was living in England and had three months free between jobs, so I decided to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. I was going to hitch hike and stay in monasteries and religious houses on the way. The first leg of my [Read More...]