Grace and growth: The exercise of retreats
Before you start reading this column, I’d like to ask you to grab some paper and something to write with. We’re going to do a short exercise.
Pope to press: Take time to listen
In his message for World Communications Day, released Jan. 24 – the feast day of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists, and just in time for Catholic Press Month – Pope Francis speaks primarily of the need to listen.
What can I give him?
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! With fresh-cut trees, spiced drinks and gingerbread cookies, it’s beginning to smell a lot like Christmas, too.
Are you ready to get WonderStuffed?
Four years has flown by since I started this job in July 2017! It has been a privilege to meet so many faith-filled and service-minded Catholics, visit your parishes and share your “Superior” stories.
At the crossroads of fear and creative courage
“Be not afraid.” It is hard not to read those words without hearing them spoken in Pope St. John Paul II’s thoughtful and convicted voice.
A prescription refill for coping with COVID
There’s nothing quite like a good Chuck Norris joke. A while back, my family went through a streak of sharing one-liners and memes heralding the prowess of Norris, now 80 years old. It was unbeatable humor even for the siblings who couldn’t tell you what he did before the turn of the century.
Gather us in, gather us home
There is something about water that always feels like “home” to me. Growing up in Michigan – the Great Lake State – I spent countless summer days at grandparents’ cottages on inland lakes, but it was the big waters of Lakes Michigan and Huron that best defined where I came from.
The question posed by COVID-19
On Ash Wednesday, I attended the St. Francis de Sales School Mass in Spooner. Our pastor, Fr. Phil Juza, asked the students to answer a question – if Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas, what is Lent a time of preparation for?
The exclamatory punctuation of tears
There is something about witnessing a grown man’s tears. Even a single escaped droplet traces his cheek like an exclamation point, deeply impressing whatever circumstances or moral-of-the-story that brought him to the verge of choked emotion.