Fr. Michael Evernden, CSP is based in Portland, OR where he works on the parish staff at St. Philip Neri Church and also does workshops, retreats, days of recollection and missions focused on evangelization and reconciliation.
The only gift we can all afford this holiday season
We look to the holiday season to lift our spirits and yet come January we are sometimes utterly depressed because our expectations were not met. There is reason to hope despite our engagement in two wars (or, to be more exact, one war and one occupation); facing global financial insecurity because of corporate greed; people losing their homes to foreclosure; millions of others who have no medical safety net; still more who are homeless, hungry or living under brutal and repressive regimes in Africa and around the world. Despite all this and more, there is reason to hope as we embark on the holiday season. In the center of all of this, in the center of our lives as families, faith communities, neighborhoods —…
Turkey perfect
We strive to make them happen, “perfect” holiday celebrations, but they often elude us. We build up our expectations but are often left feeling empty. Nothing seems as good as what we try to imagine; the better than we imagine arrives as a total surprise.
My best Thanksgiving Day arrived as a complete surprise to me.
My new tribeEleven months before that Thanksgiving I had left an alcoholism treatment center after five weeks in treatment on the ninth floor of Cabrini Hospital in Seattle. I had decided then and there that if I was going to be a recovering alcoholic, I wanted to be with the real hardcore members of Alcoholics Anonymous, which in my case meant attending meeting on skid row downtown.…
Will the Message of Lent and Mel's Movie Trickle Down to Our Hearts?
With the much hyped anticipated opening of Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ on the first day of Lent 2004, Christians were offered two ways of observing the beginning of Lent this year—with ashes or celluloid.
Or perhaps both. Both the traditional reception of ashes on Ash Wednesday and Mel’s new movie are touching the psyche of thousands of American believers and not a few non-believers. Getting your ash in gearI can neither applaud nor criticize Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ because I haven’t seen it. However, something has been bothering me about the hype surrounding this movie; and I have a continuing curiosity about the thousands who troop to church…
We look to the holiday season to lift our spirits and yet come January we are sometimes utterly depressed because our expectations were not met. There is reason to hope despite our engagement in two wars (or, to be more exact, one war and one occupation); facing global financial insecurity because of corporate greed; people losing their homes to foreclosure; millions of others who have no medical safety net; still more who are homeless, hungry or living under brutal and repressive regimes in Africa and around the world. Despite all this and more, there is reason to hope as we embark on the holiday season. In the center of all of this, in the center of our lives as families, faith communities, neighborhoods —…
With the much hyped anticipated opening of Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ on the first day of Lent 2004, Christians were offered two ways of observing the beginning of Lent this year—with ashes or celluloid.
Getting your ash in gearI can neither applaud nor criticize Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ because I haven’t seen it. However, something has been bothering me about the hype surrounding this movie; and I have a continuing curiosity about the thousands who troop to church…
