McGrath Institute Blog

The world offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.
- Pope Benedict XVI

When the alarm goes off at half past some-way-too-early hour, I wish I could say the words of Pope Benedict XVI dance through my head and I spring from my warm bed, ecstatic about my morning run.

After many failed attempts dating back to the early 1880s, Grand Canyon National Park was officially created by an act of Congress, signed by Woodrow Wilson a hundred years ago today, February 26, 1919.

Every year on February 22, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter. Confusing to many, this feast is less about an ancient piece of furniture than it is about the office of the pope and his role as a sign of unity and peace.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been reading Interior Freedom by Fr. Jacques Philippe. The book has been helpful in a lot of ways, but one insight in particular has changed the way I view interruptions in my life: I choose to be interrupted.

Every day at noon, the PA system at Christ the Redeemer School in Houston, TX, comes on with a ping! and an invitation rings out, “Please stand for the Angelus.” Throughout the entire building and campus (playground included), everyone from preschool through administration joins in praying the Angelus, recalling and praying the mystery of salvation that came through Mary’s “yes.”