Like her Christ, Kateri took the apparently senseless suffering and death that is the lot of any human being and gave it meaning.

From ldquo Dennis and Dee Go on Welfare rdquo Dennis storms into a welfare office with Dee ldquo Hi I rsquo m a recovery crackhead This is my retarded sister whom I take care of I rsquo d like some welfare please rdquo From ldquo The Waitress is Getting Married rdquo Charlie ponders wha

Stephen Herrman lived his entire life in Kansas within a few miles of a small collection of limestone wood and sod houses called Liebenthal The German name means ldquo lovely valley rdquo though there was none in sight on those flat Kansas plains It was named after a village founded by

September 2004 Al Tafar Nineveh Province Iraq Murph pointed to the low hills around the city Small fires had sprung up in the distance A few city lights and the fires on the hillsides burned like a tattered quilt of fallen stars ldquo It rsquo s beautiful rdquo I whispered I was not sure i

Afterward when the world was exploding around him he felt annoyed with himself for having forgotten the name of the BBC reporter who told him that his old life was over and a new darker existence was about to begin She called him at home on his private line without explaining how she got the n

I lift my hand to my mouth taking one last look at the world The berries have just passed my lips when the trumpets begin to blare rdquo It rsquo s not quite Socrates sipping the hemlock but it rsquo s probably a better known scene at least among young people It ends ldquo The frantic voic

We encounter the gospels more fruitfully when we approach with questions A good beginning is simply to ask why a given story was recorded in the first place Why for example do we hear of a deaf and mute man being healed by Jesus Mk 7 31-37 Why did the early Church remember this incident amo

Deuteronomy 4 1-2 6-8 James 1 17-18 21b -22 27 Mark 7 1-8 14-15 21-23 Little Jerry Siegel was born in 1914 into a large poor family living in gritty Jewish neighborhood of Cleveland He would remain a runt the object of his classmates rsquo taunts As he recalled decades later ldquo I

Joshua 24 1-2a 15-17 18b nbsp Ephesians 5 21-32 nbsp John 6 60-69 nbsp The Italians have a saying of indispensable insight Se non eacute vero eacute ben trovato ldquo If it rsquo s not true it rsquo s well found rdquo Some stories possess a truth that transcends mere facts With t

Proverbs 9 1-6 Ephesians 5 15-20 John 6 51-58 The best thing about the second half of life is figuring out what happened in the first and often the moment of insight comes when the smallest of memories is poked My mother has grown accustomed to questions from me that prompt her to reply ldquo