NEW YORK. While the mostly agreeable comedy “Ticket to Paradise” (PG-13, Universal) won’t necessarily transport viewers to cinematic heaven, it will take them to a good place, both visually and thematically. Set in Indonesia (though filmed in Australia), the film showcases enchanting island landscapes as well as ethical ideas generally in keeping with Gospel-based morality.

As parents, your life can feel like a staged performance — days and nights spent in front of the same sets over weeks and months:  Act 1:  home. Act 2: office. Act 3: school event. Act 4: sports.  Act 5: Church. Like a play, you perform alongside mostly the same characters:  spouse, children, co-worker, teacher, pastor. It is a wonderful performance, and it is true that it goes by too fast, but like every good play, it is good to have a break in the midst of the action.  Over the past six years, as our three children have grown up, Legatus has been the welcome intermission. 

COLORADO SPRINGS. On a cool autumn night last month, current and alumni Pirates of St. Mary’s High School celebrated 137 years of tradition with a week of homecoming events, culminating in the school’s first homecoming football game in three years. Warriors dressed in Pirate green are once again moving the pigskin up and down the gridiron.

DENVER. No matter which way you cut it, healing is at the center of the Gospel. In the same way as Jesus came “not to be served, but to serve” (Mt 20:28), he also came not to be healed, but to heal. Just look at the many miracles he performed; virtually all of them involved a person who so desired to be healed, and Christ alone was the only one who could satiate that desire.

One of the most remarkable things about these healings is that faith was all that was required of the one who was healed. It was not warranted on their own accord, nor did they earn it; in the end, it is Jesus Christ alone who truly heals. All we need to do is believe that he can.

Por eso también nosotros damos siempre gracias a Dios, porque, cuando escucharon la Palabra de Dios que les predicamos, la recibieron, no como palabra humana, sino como realmente es, Palabra de Dios, que actúa en ustedes, los creyentes. -1 Tesalonicenses 2:13

Mis queridos hermanos y hermanas en Cristo, es seguro decir que, en mi primer año y medio como obispo, he hecho cosas que nunca había soñado hacer en toda mi vida. Muchas de esas cosas son sólo parte de la vida de un obispo. Algunas cosas han sido alegres y otras tristes.