Thank goodness this Assembly takes place in the afterglow of Pentecost! That Solemnity makes it clear that bearing witness to the Risen Lord and spreading the Good News are only possible by the gift of the Spirit.Read More

Jesus sends us forth! After the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles, they didn’t stay in the Upper Room. They didn’t say, “Let’s form a study club” or “Let’s issue a newsletter”. No, they went right out the door and started bearing witness to the Gospel.Read More

It was forty-one years ago today, at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, that I was ordained to the priesthood by His Eminence, William Cardinal Baum. What a joy to celebrate this anniversary here, in our nation’s first seminary.Read More

Life is not merely about ourselves. You exist because in some specific way God is calling you to proclaim the Gospel and to build up the Kingdom of God in this world.Read More

You (the members of the National Diocesan Attorneys Association) help the Church to engage with integrity in its mission of service to the poor, in short, to engage in “a charity that evangelizes”— and to participate with full freedom in public square.Read More

To the Church as a whole, the Lord says, “Without me you can do nothing!” But united to Christ, the Church bears much good fruit, namely, the works of love!Read More

It’s not that most Catholics reject outright the call to spread the Gospel; it’s more that they decline to participate in it, often because they themselves have never been evangelized and adequately catechized.Read More

Just as the Apostles struggled to make this message their own and finally, in the power of the Holy Spirit, truly opened their hearts to Jesus, so too in prayer we need to invite the Holy Spirit to work in our hearts, to open them ever more widely to the message of salvation in Jesus.Read More