When the project Preaching the Just Word was initiated almost 10 years ago, I applauded. After my recent participation in a five-day retreat/workshop with 66 other Jesuits, I stand converted to a program with enormous power and potential. At the age of 75, Father Walter J. Burghardt, S.J., had finis

When I was about six years old, my dad took me to Alamitos bay for a day of sailing with an old shipyard buddy. As we came about on the last tack to approach the float in front of his house, my dad’s friend suggested that I go overboard, and he would throw the mooring line up to the beach. I h

I spotted the baby in the gardening section of the store. While his parents were scrutinizing tomato plants, the baby perched in his stroller, watching intently. He had a head of lazy blond curls, stout legs and a round face. What a beautiful boy! I exclaimed, and both parents smiled proudly. He cou

In his way out the door my husband, Shawn, looks at me with honest concern in his eyes. Are you going to be okay? Yes, I bravely try to assure him, choking back a few tears while holding our beautiful new baby girl on my lap. He is off to work and will drop our two older girls at their respective da

I am one of the lucky ones. I am one of the few who got out of addiction and off the streets. There are not many of us. Of the half million to three million men, women and children who are homeless in America, it is a simple fact that many will die on the streets or in jail or institutions.I have no

Don and his three colleagues were strolling the aisles of the department store, singing holiday carols as they’d been hired to do. Wrapped in colorful scarves, jaunty caps on their heads, they gave a wondrously festive feel to the bustle of the shopping experience. The fact that they were very