Dear Parishioners,
A priest makes a promise at Ordination to pray every day of his life the Liturgy of the Hours. One of the "hours" is Evening Prayer, and at Evening Prayer we pray the Magnificat. This is in our Gospel for the Assumption today: "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord" (Luke 1:46-55). I've prayed the Magnificat every evening now for over ten years — since the time I entered seminary — so I've had a lot of time to reflect on this beautiful passage.
Dear Parishioners,
When the Cubs had the firesale of players last week, I was tempted to do what Elijah from our first reading did: just sit down under a broom tree and wish I were dead. First Rizzo, then Bryant, then Baez. Then Aaron Rogers came back to the Packers. “This is enough, O LORD! Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers” (1 Kings 19:4).
Dear Parishioners,
“Would that we had died at the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt, as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread!" (Exodus 16:3). The Israelites grumbling about their food in our first reading reminds me when I was a child and how I used to complain when my mom made pot roast for dinner. "Ugh, I'd rather die, mom, than eat this pot roast! Can't we not get White Castle instead?"
Father James Wallace grew up in Winnetka, Illinois and attended Sts. Faith Hope and Charity grammar school, New Trier High School, and then The George Washington University in Washington DC, where he earned his undergraduate degree in Political Science in 2007. He attended seminary at The Pontifical North American College in Rome and was ordained a priest in 2012 for the Archdiocese of Chicago. In addition to being the pastor of Saint Paul of the Cross Parish, he serves as a canon lawyer for the Archdiocese, a dean in Vicariate II, and a professor of canon law and spiritual director at Mundelein Seminary. He is also one of the featured Mercy Home Sunday Mass celebrants, airing Sundays at 9:30am on WGN.
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