“Be thou my vision.” The ancient Irish words capture what I want for myself and my children: to keep the vision of God at the center of our lives. But how? Some days it feels helpless and hard enough to cling to my own faith, let alone foster theirs.
WHEN THE SECOND volume of my John Paul II biography, “The End and the Beginning,” was published in 2010, I thought I was finished with John Paul book-making. I hoped I’d done my best in bringing to a global audience the full story of a rich, complex life that had bent the curve of history in a more humane direction.
by Sister Marie Mackey, C.S.J.
ALL STATES OF life well-lived are a source of joy for the individual and for the community at large. Whether the vocation is to marriage, single life, the priesthood or consecrated life, we all can identify when someone is truly happy and is a “good fit” in his or her ministry.
CNN IS NOT the customary locale-of-choice for a catechesis on Catholic social doctrine. But that’s what Paul Ryan, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, offered viewers of a CNN national town hall meeting on Aug. 21.
AS I RECENTLY celebrated the second anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood, two things came to mind. In one sense, I felt that my ordination took place only yesterday and in another, it seemed as if I have been a priest my whole life. Hence, the mystery of the priesthood! In a priest’s life, no two days are ever the same. While your identity as a priest of Jesus Christ is unchangeable, your encounters with the people of God each day renew that identity.
LAST YEAR, I saw nearly 500 young people gather on a Saturday morning, carrying signs about the mercy of God. They were getting ready for their annual procession around New York. But in this procession, prayer was intertwined with joyous dancing and upbeat singing about how God’s love and mercy are for all.
by John Fitzgerald
SUNDAY MORNING and the concluding rite at the end of Mass begins with the celebrant saying, “The Lord be with you” and we respond, “And with your spirit.”
By Brother Mike Sheerin, F.M.S. I said “yes” to become a Marist Brother while I was a student at Christ the King High School in Middle Village in the late 1960s. I was intrigued by the 35 brothers who served in the Boys’ Division of the school back then. Their ability to engage 1,500 […]
WHEN I WAS first introduced to the fascinations of the DNA double-helix in a biology class at Baltimore’s St. Paul Latin H.S., 50 years ago, the “unraveling” of this key to unlocking the mysteries of human genetics had taken place just a dozen years before. Yet, in the five decades since my classmates and I built plastic models of the double-helix, humanity’s knowledge of its genetic code has grown exponentially. And it seems likely that, as a species, we’re only at the threshold of our capacity to use this knowledge for good or ill.
by Antonina Zielinska
BEING A TEENAGER in New York City was a treasure like no other. During my coming of age years, I had friends from all corners of the earth, practicing different religions and holding vastly different understandings of the world.
