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Living Our Faith with Bishop Reed
Let it go … and offer it up
In recent years, there have been more and more ways to sell personal items online and make a little spare cash. While we used to have to pay for classified ads in the local newspaper or tack an index card on the bulletin board in the local…
How can we be ‘Easter people?’
by Bishop Robert Reed Rich man & the beggar Year after year, we pass through the penitential season called Lent, and on Easter we bring back our ‘Glorias’ and ‘Alleluias’, and we feast again. We might hear that we are “Easter people.”…
Living Eucharistic lives
by Bishop Robert Reed The news last August that growing numbers of Catholics no longer believe that the Holy Eucharist is Jesus Christ naturally led many commentators to wonder how we can reignite people’s faith in this profound mystery…
The powerful witness of fatherhood
by Bishop Robert Reed I had two fathers when I was growing up. I know that sounds strange. The fact is, my birth father, William, was killed in a car accident just before I received my First Holy Communion. My mother remarried a…
Parents and life aren’t perfect, but love makes a house into a home
My parents were both raised in Boston. My mom was of Irish Catholic descent, and my dad was a Scottish Presbyterian. Both were hard workers and great dancers who loved a good party. In the late 1950s they built a house in a new development…
The spiritual benefits of retreats
Lent is a period of prayer and preparation, and some Catholics like to include a retreat in anticipation of Easter. Even the pope and his closest advisers in the Vatican schedule a retreat during the early days of Lent. I’ve found that many…
‘Earthrise’ and the great mystery of Christmas
We are drawing near to the end of 2019, a year in which we looked back on some significant anniversaries. One of the most important, of course, was on July 20 — 50 years since man first set foot on the moon. It made me happy to see that…
Reflecting on three years as a shepherd
It’s hard to believe, but three years have already passed since I received a call early one Monday morning to inform me that I had been named a bishop. As it took a while to get used to being called “Fr. Reed” back in 1985 when I was…
Freeing the Church from scandal
By now we know that the abuse of children and vulnerable adults crosses many boundaries. Not only has the phenomenon reared its ugly head in various Catholic dioceses around the world, it is definitely not limited to the confines of the…
Proclaiming the Gospel on air
My first experience in the field of communication was radio. I was invited to direct the radio apostolate for the Archdiocese of Boston in 1994. Although the archdiocese did not own its own radio license, there were a number of regular…