The congregation of the Sisters of Life was founded in 1991 by Cardinal John O’Connor of New York to promote the sanctity of human life. Among the first to join, Mother Agnes Mary Donovan, S.V., has been superior general since 1993; she resides at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Convent in New York

Country Held HostageYour editorial Send the Boy Home to Cuba (3/11) has many inaccuracies:1) The title makes Elián look like a parcel or inanimate object that could be easily shipped to Cuba. He is a young human being, whose feelings must be taken into account. After almost four months in the Unite

Robert Clark rsquo s parents divorced when he was two and his father died of polio three years later so he found himself in the care of his grandfather Griggs who owned a house in a forest of jack pine and spruce in northern Wisconsin and that house is for him the location of his childhood The

John Phillip Santos is program officer at the Ford Foundation in New York and the first Mexican-American Rhodes scholar to study at Oxford He is a well-known journalist and author of television documentaries With this book Santos emerges as a prose writer of unusual artistry His memoir is a stunn

Learn a new language at the advanced age of 60? Surely madness even to try. But having come to New York in 1994 to work for America, I moved after my first year of living at America House to a Jesuit parish on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Knowing that Nativity Parish is primarily Hispanic, and

In early spring several years ago, I helped to lead a retreat for college students. The weekend felt intense and emotional, but also very loving and accepting. One speaker introduced his talk by requesting that we not clap for him, or hug him, or discuss his words when he finished. He would prefer, he said, for us to leave the room quietly and spend 20 minutes in silent meditation.

When the speaker finished his talk, I walked outside to a private little courtyard. For 20 minutes I stared at the trees in front of me. I saw huge, tall trunks, their branches like barren tentacles reaching into the gray, cloudy sky. I thought about a difficult talk we heard earlier in the day. A young man had painfully recounted the impact on his family of his father’s diagnosis with severe depression and admission to a psychiatric hospital.

I thought about my own family, anticipating how our loving circle might someday shatter. "What will I suffer when I have to face the death of one of my siblings or parents?" I wondered. Looking out to the dead trees, I pondered how we would handle Thanksgiving without mom to cook the turkey. What would the day be like without dad waiting at the door, greeting everyone with an exuberant "Happy Bird-Day"? I anticipated which disease would hasten my death, and which of my siblings would suffer tragedy first. Staring at the trees, I felt profound pain. I realized that I had been unconsciously focusing on the potential losses in my life for a long time.

The retreat director rang a bell, summoning us back to the conference room. As I turned to leave the courtyard, I glanced downward. There, at my feet, was a small, lovely garden. I must have seen the garden when I walked in, but I certainly did not notice it. Purple and yellow crocuses sprouted everywhere, their tiny cups of petals brimming with color and fragrance. They were beautifulno, exquisite! Such fragile life, beating back winter through sheer confidence in the promise of spring. I stared at the garden as the bell sounded again. How could I have missed such a glorious sight? I had just stood at the edge of the garden for 20 minutes! How could I possibly have missed it? Then I knew. As warmth comes when the sun breaks through the clouds, I understood.

I missed the crocuses because I chose to focus on the deadened trees. In the very same way, I had just spent 20 minutes pondering the potential deadness of my family, instead of reliving our joys and giving thanks for such wonderful people in my life. Epiphany! Our lives are full of deaths. Tiny deaths. Monstrous deaths. Tragic, unfathomable deaths. Our lives are also full of births. Renewals. Beginnings. Resurrections. I can choose to focus on the death or on the life. I can choose to see dying trees or birthing crocuses. I can choose.

Wasn’t that the point of our retreat, I asked myself? Wasn’t that the message of Christianity? We can choose to live in the shadow of the dead wood of the cross. Or, we can choose to live in the bright promise of resurrected life. God’s presence in the world is not only about the promise of eternal life after our bodies fail us. The glory of resurrection reveals itself in every moment. We can choose to recognize God; we can choose to live our faith; we can choose to see God’s manifestation. Or not.

I have often thought about my epiphany of dead trees and crocuses. Do I choose to suffer hopelessly, or to acknowledge grace in every moment? Do I opt to experience life as barren, fruitless trees, or as a vast garden of crocuses? Will I give in to death, or rejoice in never-ending birth? We see dead trees everywhere. They appear so visible, so obvious, so hard to miss. Crocuses, we have to hunt for. We have to sweep away moldy leaves and tattered litter, or scoop away dirty, leftover piles of snow before the crocuses appear. But the promise never fails us. If we move aside the deadness, and give crocuses a little room to grow, soon we see:

daffodils,

I like to tell folks that I have a little black nun inside of me. She’s my muse, my spiritual guru, my inspiration. She’s a patron saint who leads me and guides me when I call on her to lend me a hand. She’s the late Sister Thea Bowman (1937-90). Now I never met Thea in the flesh,

This is an excerpt from his essay on the Eucharist in the forthcoming collection, Signatures of Grace (edited by Thomas Grady and Paula Huston; E. P. Dutton; a Catholic Book Club selection). I first received Christ in the Eucharist in 1955. It was Dec. 8, the feast of Mary’s Immaculate Concept

Only last year pundits were pronouncing the sitcom on its last legs. After all, "Seinfeld" and "Home Improvement" were gone, and even popular shows like "Frasier" seemed increasingly tired. (How often can you watch Niles pursue Daphne, Frasier avoid Lilith and Eddie act

Fitting TributeA brilliant star, Richard A. McCormick, S.J., illuminated the galaxy of moral theology in the 20th-century United States as no other (Signs of the Times, 2/26). His notes on moral theology over the years were eagerly devoured by opinion leaders in church and state. He shone as a fair-