A number of years ago, late summer, I walked into a small and complex ecosystem, a patient’s room in MD Anderson’s critical care unit. Except for the chirping noises from a heart monitor and the sighing of a mechanical respirator, it was quiet like a grotto or chapel....

As my dad aged, the challenges of caring for him magnified for my mother. Navigating him between the porch and her car in the driveway exhausted her. Winters were awful. Parking in the garage was out of the question. For decades. Over the years my father, an Okie dust bowl farm boy, turned his garage into pharaoh’s tomb, cramming it full with everything imaginable. Because I might need it, he said.

Few motion picture scenes are more horrifying than the large raptor dinosaur ransacking a commercial kitchen to devour two children. I remember clearly my terror watching that episode in “Jurassic Park” (1993). The idea that a reptile can hunt down and consume mammals is abhorrent but alas, I can’t say no to Komodo Dragon nature videos...

Years ago I offered Mass regularly in Spring Branch at a decades-old residential facility designed like a wagon wheel. Its pretentious name meant nothing. Everyone branded it a nursing home. Quite a few called it the Linoleum Club. Of course it looked seedy and reeked. Most residents there were poor and struggled with pain and serious cognitive problems. The kitchen clatter and weekly hairstyling made Wednesday Mass in the small dining room very difficult. Everybody screamed. A homily was out of the question. We couldn’t bear it. I remember vividly a woman named Mary, 92 years old. She wore a blousy Hawaiian sack dress, lugging her glossy black handbag on her right arm. Mary spoke with a heavy accent, and for the longest time I thought she was Spanish. She wasn't. She was Hungarian. Everyone called her the Duchess of Spring Branch.

I loved to fish on my dad’s ranch in the San Luis Valley a few miles south of Del Norte, Colorado. Working a fast-flowing snow-fed Colorado stream was my joy. The ranch meant chores, cattle and hay work, lots of it, and a teenage boy like me ached to slip away in the afternoons to stalk Frisco Creek’s banks. Sweet mountain meadows perfumed by alfalfa and timothy hay and clover. Crisp mountain air. Crystal clear, cold mountain water. Fresh-caught slippery rainbow trout.

On Easter Sunday, April 12, 2020, Father Barker published this reverent and inspiring reflection. Following are some of the highlights. The April 12, 2020 Spirit and Truth newsletter that features the complete article is now posted on our website for your convenience. The Spirit and Truth Staff...

Most zebra births take place during rainy months when food is plentiful and herds pause their migrations. Zebra females about to birth depart the herd to locate a sheltered place in taller, thicker vegetation. The many harems of a migratory zebra herd typically graze a short distance away. When curious adults, including the harem stallion, approach a mother and her newborn foal, she becomes alarmed. The mare quickly blocks her baby from viewing the visitor's stripes. This task can be exhausting...

Just below the south wall of Israel’s Temple Mount is Mount Zion. Ancient Jerusalem was founded on this long and very steep hill. These days it’s a boisterous Palestinian district. In 715 BC, Hezekiah ascended to the throne of Judah, reigning in “David’s City” about 30 years. Widely acknowledged as one of Israel’s three finest kings, he preserved his country’s independence in the face of hostile Assyrian and Babylonian powers. Hezekiah knew well that Jerusalem’s Gihon Springs (Heb. gushing) were outside the city walls. If a besieging army captured this reliable but intermittent water supply, the city would fall by starvation. Something had to be done...

To everyone about the age of 70 or above, a moment for us. I appreciate the word elder, but I’m not fond of its adjective, elderly, or the term old age so often used to suggest impairment or irrelevance. Middle age, on the other hand, conveys years of full-bodied fervor and keenness embracing both present and future. Peggy Lee’s song “It’s a Good Day” expresses this well, “You know you gotta get going  /If you're gonna make a showing  /And you got the right of way.” Middle age, it seems to me, should go all the way through one’s 79th year...

he fact that I don’t speak Spanish didn’t stop me from going to Mexico as often as possible with bilingual Catholic friends. Our driving trips took us through many interior states. Hands down Guanajuato (birthplace of Mexican independence) is the most beautiful city I’ve seen. But the industrial city of Monterrey remains my favorite. There I found many of the beautiful things that have adorned our Saint Philip worship area over the years. You will recognize several of them, for example the framed Our Lady of Guadalupe portrait in the Day Chapel, the gold seashell I use when baptizing, the gold wine-and-water cruets tray used by altar servers in our Mass, and most especially, the gold and silver footed ciborium in our tabernacle which I gifted to St. Philip in honor of Archbishop Joseph Fiorenza appointing me pastor July 01, 2005...

A few days ago a Rhode Island Red chicken was apprehended at the Pentagon for trespassing in a secure area. As if on cue, the old shame and blame -- Why did the chicken cross the road? etc. -- detonated in the DC media, going viral. A Pentagon spokesperson refused to identify where exactly the hen was caught lurking. It’s classified, she said. We do know that the Rhode Island Red was photographed, likely footprinted and denied her Miranda rights. Then she vanished. Whisked off to an undisclosed Virginia farm, we’re told. “Virginia farm” is a well-known CIA euphemism for “interrogation facility”. Fowl play is suspected. So many questions....

One morning my mother walked through the backyard carrying a basket of freshly washed clothes to hang out on the line. She heard me crying, but I was nowhere in sight. She followed my voice to a nearby great elm tree. In a flash she tilted her head back and scanned inside the leafy canopy. Spotting me glued to a branch near the top of the tree, she told me to come down. I can’t Mom I cried, I’m scared. She repeated her words more forcefully. Dick you climb down right this minute. I can’t Mom I said, I don’t know how. After staring at me a minute or so, she called out NOW DON’T YOU MOVE, I’LL BE RIGHT BACK...

When I was a little boy in the 50’s, the world was simpler. My parents were proud owners of a robust RCA Victor “tube” radio housed in a splendid mahogany cabinet. I would read Dell Comics for hours on the floor in front of its ornate facade while the world poured its potent vintage into my young mind. Radio was an intoxicating medium. The singers, funny guys and radio dramas were thrilling, and I accepted them uncritically like best friends. Mixed in that golden decade too were some scary things like polio, the Cold War, Nikita Khrushchev and atomic blast warning drills.

We are excited to announce some good changes that will be implemented in our parish as we start this new year. Like all of you, our online browsers, inboxes, voicemails, search histories and data usage are bombarded by multiple sources with constant information regarding appointments, activities, deadlines, and well, LIFE!

“We little fishes are born in holy water and are safe only by permanently abiding in that water.” (Tertullian) My dear parishioners, Archbishop Fiorenza appointed me as Saint Philip’s third pastor effective July 01, 2005. That Friday was a blistering hot day. While offering my first vigil Mass the following afternoon, a persistent noise distracted me throughout the service. Ka-chuka ka-chuka ka-chuka. Weird but also familiar. After Mass finished, I investigated the source of the noise. The sound came from a water pump to the right of the sanctuary, the kind used in swamp coolers when I was a boy. It was immersed in a large homemade plywood box 4 x 4 feet square, 18” tall, painted white, filled with water. And leaking. The pump’s electrical cord stretched out to a nearby wall plug...

My dear parishioners, the child Jesus is very near to us. In this Christmas season, we celebrate the inexpressible miracle of the Christ of God who, at a word of command, became a human being like us in all things but sin. My heart is filled with joy and wonder to realize how God created us in his own image and likeness  [cf Gen 1:26] and desires that we “put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness”.  [Eph 4:24] 

My dear parishioners, challenged in ways unimaginable in ordinary human experience, Mary of Nazareth calmly informed the archangel Gabriel of her consent to be the mother of God’s son. Her “yes” (Lat. fiat) to Gabriel is as resolute as the angel’s own service to God. Doubtless, her maternal life would be punctuated by great changes, even sorrow: “and a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.”  [Lk 2:35]  Yet Mary freely accepts pregnancy and motherhood in service of God who created her. 

My dear parishioners, I truly believe that to know Jesus Christ, one must come to him through the immaculate heart of Mary, his mother. The word through is important. In all circumstances Mary points to her son and says, “Do whatever He tells you”. [Jn 2:5] Mary was the first and best of Jesus’ disciples. As he hung on the cross, Jesus entrusted the maternal love and care of his mother to John, one of the Twelve. All generations have called Mary blessed. [cf Lk 1:48]

beautiful plants in Israel is the myrtle. Often mistaken for a tree, this handsome plant is actually an evergreen shrub, varieties of which may grow about 15 feet in height. The myrtle's fragrant white blooms beautifully adorn its shiny, soft green leaves and dense bushy foliage. Each flower can produce one semi-sweet, blue-black berry.

My dear parishioners, God says, “Behold, I make all things new.”  [Rev 21:5]  Our true destiny is life, eternal life, and our God is a God of the living. I believe anyone who is spiritually perceptive, who realizes that there are other ways to see than by mere human eyesight, understands that the angels and saints can see everything in heaven and on earth as God wills because they are perfect.