Brian Mullins is a permanent deacon in the Rockford Diocese who has been assigned by his Bishop to Saint Catherine of Genoa Parish in Genoa, Illinois.
An old Jewish saying says that when it comes to students of a rabbi, they come in four flavors: the sponge, the funnel, the strainer, and the sieve. The sponge soaks up everything he hears, the good and the bad. The funnel takes it in one end and letsContinue Reading
My good friend Alaisa Kingston Emmens is a personal trainer. She talks a lot about water’s importance in our lives, especially our bodies’ health. It can be daunting, though, to try to get in enough water. I think it’s essential to incorporate the spiritual aspect of it in our livesContinue Reading
Yesterday much of the nation watched as President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took their oath of office. Among a star-studded cast of musicians and well-spoken writers, we found politicians calling for unity and a cease to violence. All of these are good things. There is aContinue Reading
Here I am, Lord, I come to do your will. We sang that today at Mass for the Responsorial Psalm. After some interactions this week, it’s no surprise that the Holy Spirit seeks to remind us that the words we speak have power. The first reading, in particular, struck meContinue Reading
So many of us take the simple gift of a community for granted. In a world where it is encouraged and lauded to spend more time in virtual communication than face-to-face interactions, it is tough for us to understand the leper in today’s Gospel. This man was isolated from society.Continue Reading
How many of you are tired? Tired of the pandemic, the masks, the hand sanitizer. Tired of politics. We want things to go back to the way they used to be, right? We’re starting to see kids go back to school, plans being made for events, people starting to goContinue Reading
Today after Mass, we took down the Christmas decorations and banners, replacing them with Ordinary Time’s green. Ordinary Time doesn’t mean “ordinary” (bland, stagnant, boring) in the sense of the modern word; it has its roots in the word ordinal. Ordinal numbers are numbers that designate the place of aContinue Reading