Pope writes another great blog entry

No, not that Pope. There is a priest in Washington DC whom I have long regarded as my Virtual Chaplain, completely unbeknownst to him!

Virtual Internet Pastor

During my years of wandering I lacked a spiritual director or even a regular parish (this blog isn’t called “Restless Pilgrim” for nothing!). During those wilderness years I had a three month stint in Washington DC and, towards the end of my time there, I discovered Msgr. Pope’s parish.

I greatly enjoyed my visits – my exposure to gospel music until then had been limited, but I loved the enthusiastic singing I heard there. What impressed me most though was the preaching…

Msgr. Pope’s homilies were of good length, exegetical, impassioned and practical. I had often been critical of the standard of homilies in the Catholic world and hearing this kind of preaching was a breath of fresh air.

After my visa expired I left Washington DC and continued my wanderings around England and the USA. Fortunately, I soon discovered Msgr. Pope’s blog, together with his homily recordings and podcast feed. This meant that whether I was living in London, San Diego or somewhere in between, I received the same teaching. It was like having a regular pastor again 🙂

As I Am

I bring this up because today while eating my lunch I was catching up on my blog reading and saw a recent post from Msgr. Pope entitled On the Myopia of Low Self-Esteem: “Coming to accept ourselves as God has made us”.

I’ve personally attempted to write a post on this very subject a couple of times now, but found it too difficult, causing my half-completed entry to languish interminably in my “Drafts” folder. I’ve now deleted it and posted this one instead, linking to the Monseigneur’s article. Believe me, you’ll be significantly more edified by his words rather than my own.