I was a substitute teacher, and he was a 13-year-old boy. His face, still chubby with childhood, was framed by greased black hair that formed two spit curls at his temples. First he came and told me that he could not participate in physical education class that day because he would get his shoes mud

The girl who plows into my 13-year-old daughter as we stroll through the park at the annual Mountain Festival is solid. She is pierced with studs in odd places. Her tank top just covers her adolescent breasts. The force of her forward-pumping legs nearly knocks my daughter off her feet, and she stag

On the second full day I was in Nairobi, Kenya, I had the privilege of concelebrating at the funeral Mass for John Anthony Kaiser, a priest of the Mill Hill Missionaries, who had been killed after serving in western Kenya for over 36 years. His as-yet unidentified killers fired a shotgun into the ba

Mother Katharine Drexel founded schools nationwide, including Xavier University, and a religious order to serve people of color.

The turn in spirit is inevitable, a sudden ambivalence. Longing for a few hours without the kids, I rush around the house preparing the children for a day with a care provider other than myself. With eager anticipation I spread the peanut butter and jelly. I wash the breakfast dishes, pack extra clo

I am a slothful pray-er. At Mass I pray standing up, kneeling or sitting along with the flock. But at home I seem to pray more earnestly—in a prone position. Sheer laziness, probably, but I rationalize the act by assuring myself that God doesn’t mind. The posture isn’t important, n