Honoring a Prophet
August 1st, 2025: Memorial of Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
But Jesus said to them,
"A prophet is not without honor except in his native place
and in his own house."
And he did not work many mighty deeds there
because of their lack of faith.
I am the youngest of three children. By the grace of God, I have always taken an interest in the faith. I loved being an altar server; there was just something about the incense, the bells, and the order that attracted me. However, as the youngest of three children in my family, I was often seen as just the baby of the family when it came to discussions about the Church's teachings on moral issues or simple faith in God. It didn’t matter if I had a degree in theology; what did I know?
The truth is, my siblings likely would have been treated similarly by our parents had they taken the faith seriously in their younger years. I was too familiar. I remember one time my fundamentalist grandmother coming over for some holiday. She didn’t like Catholics, but my Dad married a Catholic. My grandmother’s son would join the Catholic Church, and all her grandkids were Catholic. A Bible was lying on the table, and she walked up to me and said, “You do believe it, don’t you?”
I replied, “Sure, Grandma. I believe it, but I also know that there are different genres of writing in the Bible.”
“I’ll pray for you,” she said in a condescending tone.
In our digital age, many of us seek like-minded people and a community because we're not honored for our faith at home. It was announced yesterday that St. John Henry Newman will be given the honor of being named a Doctor of the Church. It reminded me of my journey of searching for community—those to discuss and share the faith with, and receive inspiration to proclaim the gospel to others. I stumbled on a blog several years ago called “All Along the Watchtower.” It was a Christian discussion forum that brought together representatives from all faith traditions to discuss and debate the different doctrines of each particular church.
The site, at the time, was run by British historian and professor John Charmley. Of course, I started in the comment sections giving my view, but I later became a writer for the ecumenical site. The site and John's approach to running it as a community of writers were the inspiration for the format of Missio Dei Catholic. One of the challenges of writing a site on the faith is finding the time and inspiration to write about it daily. However, if you can bring a group of writers together in a cooperative format, which was John’s approach, you’d have several people to create content with and build a community between them.
John Charmley was a Churchill Biographer. I believe he was a convert to the Catholic faith, too. Being English, he fiercely admired St. John Henry Newman. The news broke on social media about Newman being named the latest Doctor of the Church, and I saw someone mention that John, in May, had suddenly and unexpectedly passed away
Being an English Catholic is being a prophet without honor. Tolkien felt it. Newman felt it. I know John did, too. But John let me into his ecumenical community when I was searching for those to share my interest in the faith, and John was the inspiration for this space for Catholics to come together and build a community.
So, let’s pray for the soul of our brother, John Charmley. May that prophet find rest with our Lord. Amen.
RIP John. You have clearly inspired others by your life.
My maternal grandmother was a staunce Baptist and despised Catholics. My mother's pastor, at the time, when she said she was going to marry a Catholic and she was also converting before they wed. The pastor told my sweet mother that she would burn in Hell. How horrible for a man who was supposed to be a Christian pastor, to say such a horrible thing to my mother. I'm so THANKFUL to be a cradle Catholic and will.die a Catholic because I will never the One True Church of Jesus Christ, Himself. +JMJ+