Deacon Victor Puscas

Deacon Arthur Miller

Preaching Racism

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It was about 3:30 a.m., and I was working the midnight shift as a police officer in a suburb of Chicago. My partner and I were dispatched to investigate a suspicious person described as a black male wearing a dark hoodie and acting strange. He was walking in an affluent neighborhood. We responded to the Read More
deacon

Words Matter

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Like a lot of guys, I played baseball in high school. I was what the local college scouts euphemistically called a “defensive specialist.” That was simply a nice way of saying I couldn’t hit. Not yet ready to give up the “glory days” of high school baseball about which Bruce Springsteen famously crooned, I attended Read More
book cover

‘Remembering Why We Preach’ Is a Self-Guided Retreat

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I have had the pleasure of meeting both authors of “Remembering Why We Preach” — Dr. Karla J. Bellinger and Father Michael E. Connors, CSC — through the University of Notre Dame Summer Preaching Conferences and the Marten Program in Homiletics and Liturgics. Though fond of both of them, I shall attempt to remain objective. Read More
Seven deacons

The Magnificent Seven

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“The Magnificent Seven” was a 1960 Western film directed by John Sturges starring Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson. Seven gunfighters are hired by Mexican peasants to liberate their village from oppressive bandits. The movie has been described as one of the greatest films in American history and was selected for preservation in the Read More
Eucharist

Fulfilling Our Role in the Eucharistic Awakening

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In November 2021 the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops met in Baltimore for its Fall General Assembly. There the bishops unveiled a three-year Eucharistic Revival that will culminate with the National Eucharistic Congress in 2024 in Indianapolis. Bishop Andrew Cozzens of the Diocese of Crookston, Minnesota, gave the bishops the details about this planned revival. Read More
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Wide-ranging Questions on the Diaconate Considered

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Once upon a time, I worked as an attorney. I walked into court one day and saw a birthday cake. The judge, sporting a flattop crewcut, invited me to have a piece and explained that it was the birthday of the Marine Corps (Nov. 10). Provocatively, I said, “Oh, yeah … that’s the division of Read More

God Bless You, Gesundheit, Salud!

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I remember it like it was yesterday. The first Mass I ever served as a deacon following ordination. Just before the entrance procession, the pastor leaned over to me and said, “You’re all full of the grace of holy orders … why don’t you give the final blessing at the end of Mass?” I wasn’t Read More

A Call to Rethink the Diaconate

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The very idea of a deacon reviewing a book written by a bishop only proves the time-honored maxim that fools rush in where angels fear to tread. This particular fool chooses to begin with the words of the fictive restaurant critic Anton Ego from the Disney movie “Ratatouille”: “In many ways, the work of a Read More