Shawn Reeves
By Shawn Reeves 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time/July 5 Zechariah 9:9-10; Psalm 145:1-2,8-9,10-11,13-14; Romans 8:9,11-13; Matthew 11:25-30 I have bouts with insomnia. Often my mind can find no rest. Problems, planning, tasks, and obligations weigh it down and push sleep away. It is a frustrating and fatiguing phenomenon. In our first reading, God announces a message […]
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Volunteers are pictured with one of several pro-life billboards created and installed at several locations in the Champaign area. Among those pictured is Father Fredi Gomez Torres, who blessed the sign and site. (Provided photo)
Teams of volunteers are creating and installing billboards with pro-life themes along roads in the Champaign-Urbana area. The billboards, designed by a volunteer graphic artist from St. Patrick Parish in Tolono, are placed on donated land. “We’d love to put up as many as possible to foster a stronger culture of life,” said Renee Mullen, […]
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Rose Byrne and Steve Carell star in a scene from the 2020 movie "Irresistible." The Catholic News Service classification is A-III -- adults. (CNS/Daniel McFadden, Focus Features)
By Catholic News Service After a video of his impassioned speech to a meeting of the town council in his small, cash-strapped Wisconsin farming community comes to the attention of a high-powered Democratic Party strategist (Steve Carell), a retired Marine colonel (Chris Cooper) agrees to run for mayor if the Washington-based pol will stay in […]
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Kelly O'Sullivan and Ramona Edith-Williams star in a scene from the movie "Saint Frances." The Catholic News Service classification is O -- morally offensive. (CNS/Oscilloscope Films)
By Catholic News Service A grotesque treatment of abortion and a misguided view of faith are the most notable elements of this mix of comedy and drama charting the friendship between an adrift 34-year-old woman (Kelly O’Sullivan) and the little girl (Ramona Edith-Williams) she nannies for a summer. As written by O’Sullivan and directed by […]
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Sister Maria Elena Padilla, OSF
EAST PEORIA — A funeral Mass was offered on June 22 for Sister Maria Elena Padilla, OSF, at the Motherhouse of The Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis here. Burial was in Mater Dolorosa Cemetery. Sister Maria Elena died on June 18, 2020, at the Motherhouse. She was 91 and had been a […]
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Johnny Nguyen, Clarke Peters and Delroy Lindo star in a scene from the movie "Da 5 Bloods." The Catholic News Service classification is L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. (CNS/David Lee, Netflix)
Rich but harrowing drama in which a quartet of veterans (Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis and Isiah Whitlock Jr.) who formed a deep bond during their service in Vietnam return there, partly to retrieve the body of a fallen comrade (Chadwick Boseman) they revered as a mentor but also to recover a cache of […]
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Deacon Jack Kettering
ROCK ISLAND — A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, June 23, at St. Pius X Church here for Deacon Jack M. Kettering, who was a member of the second class of permanent deacons ordained for the Diocese of Peoria. Deacon Kettering — who served at parishes including Sacred […]
Continue reading Shawn Reeves
By Shawn Reeves Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time/June 21 Jeremiah 20:10-13; Psalm 69:8-10,14,17,33-35; Romans 5:12-15; Matthew 10:26-33 My wife and I have been married for more than 20 years, and we are not the same people we were when we said our vows. St. John Henry Cardinal Newman once famously wrote, “Growth is the only evidence […]
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Fourteen priests of the Diocese of Peoria have received new assignments in clergy appointments announced this month by Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, CSC. Three priests were granted senior status. They include: Msgr. Steven P. Rohlfs, P.A., 70, a former vicar general and administrator of the Diocese of Peoria and rector emeritus of Mount St. Mary’s […]
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Megan Gannon is the author of "Special Saints for Special People: Stories of Saints with Disabilities," recently published by Twenty-Third Publications. She is a member of St. Timothy Church in Chantilly, Virginia. (Zoey Maraist/courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald)
Reviewed by Father Luke Spannagel If you have been following my book reviews, you may have noticed that I really enjoy stories. And people from the parishes where I have served know that I especially like saint stories. I am always edified by the great faith of the saints and find myself inspired by how […]
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