Posts by Fr Joseph M Esper

This time of year there are many special television programs, movies, and stories about Christmas—and particularly, about how some obstacle had to be overcome or some change of heart effected so that Christmas might truly be understood and celebrated. We have the song about Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, who makes it possible for Santa Claus to leave the North Pole in spite of terrible weather. Dr. Seuss’ story on “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” describes how a villain became the…

A Christian evangelist who went about preaching the Gospel was once asked his occupation by a stranger, and he answered, “I work for the Lord.” “Oh, really,” said the other man; “and how much does that pay?” “Not very much,” the evangelist admitted, and then he smiled and added, “But you sure can’t beat that retirement plan.” We might say that all the great missionaries and evangelists from the Church’s history are now enjoying their retirement in the Kingdom of Heaven. They were faithful…

One day a girl brought home her report card. Most of the grades were all right, and a few were even very good—but there was one glaring exception that stood out like a sore thumb, no doubt due to a lack of effort on the girl’s part in that particular subject. When her mother saw this grade, she demanded in an angry tone, “Young lady, I want you to explain to me why you got an ‘F’ in spelling!” The girl shrugged her…

Once upon a time there was a widowed mother whose only family member was her son, and she loved him with all her heart. The boy grew up, and as a young man entered the army and went off to war. One day the woman received the tragic news that her son had died in battle. She was heartbroken and had no one to console her. Having a deep faith in God, she prayed, “O Lord, I need to see him again—just for five…

In October 2021, a pregnant girl in South America was considering abortion, but she changed her mind; because of the loving support of pro-life volunteers and priests at a women’s shelter run by the Church, she decided to have her baby. This infuriated a group of radical, pro-abortion feminists, and they reacted by spraying red paint on the walls of the cathedral in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and then marching inside as Mass was being said. When…

I’d bet that, for many of us when we were growing up, one of our favorite movies was The Wizard of Oz. One of the scenes from the movie that’s always stuck with me is when Dorothy and her friends return to the wizard’s castle and bring him the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West, as he had ordered. However, the wizard—who appears to them as a huge, disembodied vaporous face, flanked by streams of shooting fire—curtly dismisses them without granting…

A young nurse named Leslie once witnessed something that, according to her, defied medical science. A patient was told by a hospital surgeon that his badly infected leg needed to be amputated—but a few hours later, the doctor discovered that somehow, even though this normally never happened, circulation had returned to the man’s leg, and he was going to be okay. As the mystified doctor later stated to Leslie, “When I walked into the waiting room to talk to the patient’s family,…

Some years ago, there was a woman in Mexico who supposedly possessed great spiritual powers, including the gift of healing; people from throughout the country were going to her for help, and afterwards singing her praises. This was brought to the attention of the local archbishop, a very holy man. Something didn’t quite feel right about the situation, so he sent a priest to investigate. This priest, after spending time with the woman and observing her so-called healings, reported back to the archbishop,…

One summer the New Yorker magazine used for its front cover a painting of a scene from the beach. There were five people in the painting: four adults and a little girl. Three of the adults were pacing back and forth with anxious expressions while talking on their cell phones, and the other adult was seated on a beach chair, staring intently at his laptop computer. In the meantime, the girl was holding a seashell up to her ear, listening to the sound of the sea…

The sheriff’s department in a large city once distributed a list of rules titled “How to Raise a Juvenile Delinquent in Your Own Family.” The rules were: (1) Begin at infancy to give the child everything he wants; this will teach him that the world owes him a living; (2) Pick up everything he leaves lying around; this will teach him that he can always shift responsibility to others; (3) Always take his side against neighbors, teachers, and police officers. These people…

Just over two months ago, on October 7, the nation of Israel was surprised by a number of deadly, vicious, and unjustified terror attacks launched from the Palestinian city of Gaza; many Israeli civilians—innocent men, women, and children—were brutally tortured, murdered, or captured and taken away as hostages. An Israeli named Amir, his wife Miri, and their two little girls, ages three and one, lived in Israel near Gaza in a small kibbutz—a Jewish community or village in which all the…

About 120 years ago, a woman entered a New York City department store during a heavy storm, wet and disheveled from the weather. Because business was slow that day, the sales clerks had gathered together and were talking baseball, even though there was other work they could have been doing. It was a lazy afternoon, and they were more interested in their discussion, so they ignored the customer—except for one young man we’ll call Henry Lattimore—who went over to the woman, spoke…