Month: October 2026

Many of us played the Monopoly board game when we were younger. True to its name, the goal was to create a “monopoly” in which you became the wealthiest player by buying, developing, and trading land and hotels while bankrupting all other players. But the game has an interesting history. Elizabeth “Lizzie” Magie grew up in Illinois in the mid-nineteenth century. Her father was a newspaper publisher who accompanied Abraham Lincoln during his many political debates. She inherited her father’s progressive ideals, including the abolition of slavery, and became a proponent of an idea in economics that taxes should not be levelled on income but on land. The tax should reflect the size, location and usefulness of the properties. Then, after funding the government, the leftover money should be distributed to the people. In 1903, Lizzie created a board game called “The Landlord’s Game” which could be used to teach about two economic systems. She provided two sets of rules. In the first set, every time a player purchased new property a small amount of money was given to every other player. This reflected a “land value tax”. The game was over when the player with the least amount of money doubled their savings, but every player slowly becomes more wealthy! In the second set of rules a player gained money by charging rent each time someone landed on his property. When Parker Brothers bought the game, they decided to include only the second set of rules.  After the parable of the talents, Jesus says, “For whoever has will be given more… whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.” In other words, the world operates such that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. But this is not how it is in the Kingdom of God. If only the original rules of the game had survived….. – – – Fr. Jim

“Ask the beasts and they will teach you….In His hand is the life of every living being.” (Job 12:10). Today is the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, October 4. Francis had a deep spiritual kinship with all creatures. He referred to animals as his “brothers” and “sisters,” seeing all creation as a unified family praising God. Dogs are our most faithful companions. Cats are groomed by their mothers as kittens, which creates a sense of security and affection. Petting by humans triggers similar feelings of comfort, effectively mimicking the intimacy of their mother. This past spring I was “adopted” by two neighborhood cats. It all started when I accidentally fed them….three nights in a row! We named the orange cat Monica and the brown cat Augustine (or “Mocho”). They frolicked together a lot and were very curious about all the visitors who came to the church or office,. Augustine, like his namesake, was a bit more rebellious than Monica, more daring and more reluctant to be held or petted. But last Saturday night, Augustine changed. He wanted to be touched, and he purred loudly as I stroked his head. Under the full moon, he sat at my feet while I massaged him with my foot. The next day he was killed by cars leaving the parking lot after 8 am Mass. I wonder if Mocho had an intuition that this was to be his last night on earth. I wonder if he wanted his last night to be one of comfort and affection, sharing the love of another of God’s creatures. “Bless the beasts and the children, for in this world they have no voice…they have no choice…..Light their way when the darkness surrounds them…. Bless them, for the world can never be the world they see.” – – – Fr. Jim

For two years I served as the Volunteer Coordinator for local Habitat for Humanity affiliates – first in Ft. Smith, AR, and then in Dallas. Every Saturday I would manage a different group (or groups) of volunteers who came to work on the houses that we were building. Many were from churches – Baptist, Catholic, or evangelical. But other groups or individuals were simply people of good will who believed that every family should have safe, decent, and affordable housing. We called this the shared “theology of the hammer”. In philosophical terms, we might call these people “secular humanists”. Secular humanism is a philosophy of life that relies on human reason and experience to understand the world and guide ethical decision-making, rather than faith or divine revelation. Jesus would say that these are people who do not cry “Lord, Lord” and yet are still doing the work of His Heavenly Father. In Mark 9:40, Jesus says, “For whoever is not against us is for us,” affirming that anyone doing good works in His name — even if not part of His immediate group — is considered an ally in His mission. Building a home, providing clean water, visiting those in prison, and tending to the sick – all of these are the work of the Heavenly Father who loves all of His creation. This is why we Christians can say that “love of neighbor” is our way of showing our “love of God”. They are two sides of the same coin. Whenever you offer a Mass stipend, or give to the children’s collection, you are participating in the work of our parish’s charity. Each month our charity fund helps many people who are struggling to pay utility bills, or rent, or have a medical procedure. You are doing the Father’s will! – – – Fr. Jim

In Psalm 19, we pray “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands …. The sun rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth.” This psalm can lead to prayer that places us in the immense space and time of the universe. Our sun and earth are part of the Milky Way Galaxy, a spiral galaxy that contains about 100–400 billion stars, besides the sun. But the Milky Way is only one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the observable universe! The psalm prayer now has expanded far beyond what we can see. We are a tiny dot in the universe, and yet, as Jesus said, “…even the very hairs on your head have been counted by my Heavenly Father.” (Matthew 10:30). As we pray, we can place ourselves in the space of the universe. But we can also pray in the immensity of time. The universe formed from a single “bang” over 26 billion years ago. Our earth was formed 4.6 billion years ago. Humans are newcomers. Our bodies and brains began to take their current shape about 300,000 years ago. We are slowly evolving towards the human Christ, the Omega Point, but we have a long way to go. This kind of prayer would be well-known to the mystical saints, such as St. John of the Cross and St. Catherine of Siena. They were keenly aware of the immensity of God and the smallness of man. It God would speak to us today, he might say, as he did to Job, “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?” (Job 38:4). I find it comforting to place myself in such an immense, beautiful story! – – – Fr. Jim