Why must we turn our eyes from suffering? A reflection on my mother’s death.
Faith in Focus
A Visitation: Two strangers unexpectedly bring home the pain of war.
Two strangers bring home the pain of war.
15 Minutes to Let God Lead: Walking with Francis de Sales and Ignatius Loyola
The lessons of Francis de Sales and Ignatius Loyola
A Dinosaur Ponders The Latin Mass
We are fast becoming extinct, we dinosaur Catholics who passed through childhood, adolescence and into adult years with the Latin Mass. Now men and women in the generations after us are talking a lot about the Latin Mass. Perhaps my personal recollections of the journey from Latin to English, surely
Preserving Catholic Identity: Responses to Wilson Miscamble
Responses to Fr. Wilson Miscamble
A Righteous Gentile: Marcel Dubois (1920-2007)
Philosopher, theologian, teacher, spiritual director, custodian of souls, man of God— Marcel Dubois, O.P., was all of these. Of the Christians living in the State of Israel, he was one of those best known to Jews. By the time of his death last June, Father Dubois had taught philosophy to gener
The Messiah Is Coming: Musings at the gate of Rosh Hashanah
The Days of Awe, from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, afford Jews an opportunity to reflect on what the enterprise of Jewish life is all about. As with all religious traditions, it must be about more than the symbols or institutions of our respective communities of faith. For Christians,
The Peculiar Grace of Failure: A year of teaching, a lifetime lesson learned
I have always been a reasonably successful person: a long marriage, beautiful children, published clips on demand, no criminal record, no bankruptcies. Ive been a hard worker at every job Ive had. Ive been O.K.until this past year, which I have spent as an English teacher in a public high school. Th
Horace McKenna, Apostle of the Poor
A line still forms outside the Father McKenna Center at St. Aloysius Church in Washington, D.C. People come to the cramped but homey church basement looking for food, clothing, housing and personal support. They still tell stories about Father McKenna, who died 25 years ago.
Praying in the Wild: Amid bears, grief and danger, a man finds peace.
While camping in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeast Minnesota last fall, which I regularly do, I had my first encounter with a bear. Black bears are shy, but a dry summer had left few berries, and previous messy campers had advertised the area as a promising place to stave off a
