…and the livin’ is easy. Well, maybe in the long ago Charleston world of Porgy and Bess that’s the way it was, but for most of us in the here and now, the summer isn’t a whole lot different from the other seasons of the year. Easy? Not really. The job, if we’re lucky enough… Read More »

The word “fortnight” is not a word in American English, at least not yet. In British English it means “two weeks”, the “fort-” coming from and being a kind of version of “fourteen.” So amongst the mysteries of the Church, it is one of the minor mysteries why the American Catholic bishops, speaking to an… Read More »

This is not just good news, but very good news. Archbishop Cupich has appointed Deacon Alfred Coleman II to serve here at St. James. July 1 is the date the appointment takes effect, and so he and his wife, Avis, will be formally introduced to the parish at both of the masses on Sunday, July… Read More »

Well, that didn’t work out quite as planned… but even so it worked out pretty well. The plan, as announced earlier during mass and in the bulletin, was to have a Parish Council election in May. Three members of the current council were scheduled to leave it, and so we were looking for volunteers to… Read More »

The CBS news show “60 Minutes” doesn’t have theme music but a theme sound: the steady ticking of a clock. Here at St. James, now and at least through the summer, we could do a lot worse than adopt that theme sound as our own. Time and times, schedules and waiting, these things are concerns… Read More »

We are at a strange moment (to say no more) when we come to our annual celebration of Mother’s Day and the most shown video tape of a mother in action and the most commented on mother-child image is that which involves a mother slapping around her teenage son, and doing so with such energy… Read More »

Every year, every parish in the Archdiocese of Chicago has a number of mandated “special collections.” Parish priests are not overly fond of these for a variety of reasons: although all of them are very worthy causes, there seem to be so many of them, and some of them seem to have so narrow an… Read More »