Brad Bursa

Reflections on the necessity of prayer and a few resources. Why spend time praying? Well, for one, we pray because Jesus told us to. In Mt 6:8, he says, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” The Father, he knows everything. So the Psalmist declares, “Your eyes saw me unformed; in your…

Seeking Christ with Pope Benedict XVI It is Advent. It is always Advent. In 1964, Joseph Ratzinger preached three sermons in the Cathedral at Münster in an effort to answer what being a Christian means today. It was Advent at the time, and this comes through in his reflections. Advent does not celebrate the past…

An analogy for the Christian life. Consider the pencil. To be honest, I never did. Until I read an obscure line in Pope Benedict XVI’s Last Testament, which says: As a young lad I wrote in pencil and then stayed with it. The pencil has an advantage in that one can erase things. If I…

If everyone could just stop complaining… My boys had pulled out the metal rod that controls our fireplace’s rotary damper. Again. When they tried to fix it on their own by shoving it back in with all their might, they managed to wedge it into the other parts and got it stuck. So I got…

On the modern movement from freedom to license. I was young. Twenty-two, to be exact. And I was teaching high school sophomores. My baby-face was unhelpful in this situation, as I looked younger than some of my students. Before the year started, I got all fired up after watching Dead Poets Society and decided I…

A brief catechesis on why creation matters. I run a catechetical program for the parishes at which I serve as director of evangelization. This week, I offered a lesson on that first line of the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.” I opted to omit a section…

A Reflection on Psalm 73 and the Life of Discipleship Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s Coat of Arms contains three images — all of them somewhat strange. Take a look:  First, we see the Crowned Moor of Freising. Traditionally part of heraldry in Europe, and a longstanding image in the diocese, the actual origins of the Moor…

On AI and the value of struggle. My daughter, the one who is a freshman in high school, mentioned something about writing a paper using Magisterium AI as a resource. This tool, developed by Longbeard, an outfit dedicated to building Catholic AI, combs a database containing over 11,700 Vatican documents to respond to your engineered…

On the value of knowing nothing. When I started my doctoral studies, I was talking with a professor who had just completed his. I was saying something about realizing how much I didn’t know as I was working through graduate level coursework. Quite pithily, he said, “Yes. When you’re an undergraduate, you think you know…

As I was navigating a tough decision that would impact my future, a priest-mentor of mine told me to chill out. Then he gave me a little lesson on God’s providence. We’re prone to “make something happen.” It’s like a sickness. “Making” is an anxiety that replaces God’s providence with our own attempts to make…