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On Sept. 28, I will have the privilege of ordaining the transitional deacon class of the North American College at Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Among this group of men from dioceses all over the United States, is one of our own – Stephen Jones.

There are many things that distinguish our Catholic faith and practice from other expressions of Christian faith and certainly from the dominant secular faith of our culture. 

On Aug. 28 we celebrate the feast day of one of the most intriguing and well-known saints on the calendar: Saint Augustine; a product of the Church of the 4th century. 

Atop Mount Tabor, in the Holy Land, stands the Church of the Transfiguration – built on the traditional site of the mystery the Church celebrates each year on Aug. 6. It was designed by Twentieth-Century Italian architect Antonio Barluzzi in 1924.

July 28 will mark 42 years since Blessed Stanley Rother gave his life for the Gospel and his parishioners while serving in the Oklahoma mission in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala. 

Catholics were a very small minority in the American colonies at the time of the American Revolution. Of the two million British colonists, only 2 percent were Catholic. Most of the Catholic population was settled in the colony of Maryland (Mary’s Land, founded by Catholics). 

Hall of Fame quarterback Archie Manning knows the value of fatherhood. The father of three sons – two of whom were NFL quarterbacks – understands the value of fatherhood because of what happened to his own father, Buddy.

Since my arrival in 2011, one of my persistent prayers has been for a New Pentecost for the Church in central and western Oklahoma. 

In the final weeks of the Easter Season, we are celebrating an important yet difficult mystery of our faith. Compared to the shocking truths we celebrate in the Lord’s passion, death and resurrection, Jesus’ ascension is less accessible at face value. 

What does it mean to belong to the Catholic Church? To be a member of the Church?  Is it membership in the sense of belonging to a club or a political party, that is, something that we can join and leave as we please? Though many Catholics may consider it so, our baptism has more durable consequences.  

On April 19, 1995, the Wednesday following Easter, a bomb strategically placed in front of the Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City extinguished the lives of 168 people, many of them children in the building’s day care center.

Christ is Risen! Alleluia!  Another Lenten season has concluded with the joyful celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ at Easter. Lent provided an opportunity for us to reflect on our deepest identity as human beings, as children of God, and particularly as Catholics. 

It is common for people to express their intense interests as something they are “passionate about.” Someone can be passionate about golf or food or the Oklahoma City Thunder or exercise. For each of these passions, there is something deep within us that moves us to action.

This week, throughout the world, people will be celebrating the feast day of Saint Patrick, marked by different cultural practices from the way we dress to the things we eat and drink.  

We have begun our Lenten journey toward Easter. Since it’s a spiritual journey – a journey of faith – the destination is not a physical one.

The history of the Catholic Church in Oklahoma is a fascinating and still unfolding story. It was an intrepid band of Benedictine missionary monks who arrived in 1875 and established the first permanent Catholic settlement in Indian Territory.

Each year in January, we take time to pray with and for Christians worldwide during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which is observed in the Northern Hemisphere this year from Jan. 18 to 25. 

We have concluded our period of Advent preparation and now celebrate the joyful season of Christmas. Merry Christmas to you and to all your loved ones!

On Dec. 11, the day before the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I blessed a beautiful bronze statue of Our Lady atop our replica of Tepeyac Hill on the grounds of the Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine. This was the first public event at the shrine, and it was open to the public. 

On Nov. 2, The Oklahoman featured a story about a student-athlete at one of our Catholic high schools in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. On its face, the story was celebrating this student’s athletic success, but it was about more than that.