A number of years ago, I belonged to a parish that brought Communion to a local hospital each Sunday. One Sunday, as I approached one of the rooms and looked in, all I could see were white sheets covering a mound of pillows. Coming around the bed, I discovered a small, emaciated woman in a fetal pos
Faith in Focus
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Safe-Keeping
I open the gray metal box. Where others keep grandma’s opal from Australia or silver certificates, I keep one hand-written letter. In my father’s unique penmanship, the long “y” of sorry reaches down and captures a memory: My dear daughter, …what happened long ago…. It i
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A Winter Mass in Prison
One of the Little Sisters of the Gospel who is a chaplain at a prison on Rikers Island in New York City asked me to say the Sunday Mass there on what turned out to be a bitterly cold afternoon. Part of me was glad to go; it would reconnect me with my own past years of chaplaincy work there. That exp
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Christmas: Wonderful Exchange
"When peaceful silence lay over all, and night had run half of her swift course, your all powerful word, O Lord, leaped down from heaven from the royal throne” (Wis 18:14-15) “…and Mary gave birth to a son, her first born. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a ma
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Dan Lord, Hollywood Priest
This year is the 50th anniversary of the death of Daniel A. Lord, S.J. (1888-1955), one of the best-known American Jesuits of the last century. Though now forgotten by many, Lord was a larger-than-life figure in the seemingly confident, cohesive preconciliar church in America. Catholics, especially
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The Source of Our Hope
We are pilgrim people, marching through time but anchored in eternity. We are waiting for a new life to unfold as we celebrate a life that we already own. This is our Christian existence. The gift of hope keeps our eyes on the future; that same hope secures our existence here and now. Hope has an im
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The Virtue of Hope
The mark of authentic Christianity has always been a paradox: it is thoroughly rooted in the earth (God’s creation) and entirely bent on moving toward heaven (God himself). It is a dynamic balance if there ever was one. The virtue of hope is not different. How could it be? It is as human as ca
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Delayed Reaction
I was traveling toward a major metropolitan area on the last day of a long holiday weekend. You can picture the scene: as far as the eye could see, both lanes were clogged, moving slowly. It was the sort of traffic that leaves only one option: double the expected travel time, find an entertaining ra
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The Vocation of a Theologian
On Oct. 6, 2005, a memorial Mass was celebrated at Holy Trinity Church in Washington, D.C., for Monika Hellwig, the distinguished theologian and educator who a month earlier had become a Senior Fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center. It was the very day and time when she had planned to lead a di
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To Live Is to Hope
We are pilgrim people. So the Second Vatican Council proclaimed 16 times in its documents. Ever since Catholics heard these words, they have echoed them in songs and chants: we are pilgrims on the march, “for here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come” (Heb 13:14