Brad Bursa

Practical Wisdom (Part III) Fr. Clement listened to me complain about all the families currently registered at the parish who were neither enrolled in the school, nor in any of our formation programs. I wasn’t done. I went on to express my concern about all the other families within the parish boundaries for which we…

A Meditation on the Mission of Stella Maris Family of Parishes I am director of evangelization for Stella Maris Family of Parishes in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. At present, the Archdiocese is in the middle of what is called the Beacons of Light pastoral planning process. Beacons is a response to the declining number of…

Insights from the Rule of St. Benedict In The Wisdom of the Desert, Thomas Merton points out that the early monks who sought solitude in the wilderness “insisted on remaining human and ‘ordinary.’ This may seem to be a paradox, but it is very important. If we reflect a moment, we will see that to…

Practical Wisdom (Part II) My first year of teaching was a blur. This is is the case for most first year teachers. It’s just overwhelming, like trying to drink from a firehose. I don’t remember many of the details from that year, but I do know, taken as a whole, it was an intensely formative…

Practical Wisdom (Part I) Prefatory Note: The Desert Fathers, the hermits who stand at the origins of monasticism, are known for their sayings. These pieces of wisdom were practical bits of common sense and they’ve been handed on from generation to generation. As Thomas Merton puts it, “The Fathers were humble and silent men, and…

Joseph Ratzinger on the meaning of the word. Prefatory Note: In a previous post, I announced that I was beginning a year-long effort to articulate the gospel according to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. This is the second installment in that series. Growing up, my religious education refrained from talking about sin. Mine was a kind of…