Call me old-fashioned, but when I sit down to write something important, I don’t turn on the computer. First, I write it out with pen on paper. Call me doubly old-fashioned, because I use a fountain pen to do it, not the cheap fountain pens we were taught to use in third grade — the ones that left blue stains on our uniform shirt pockets — but the kind that fills from an ink bottle.

I didn’t get a driver’s license until after my ordination. Growing up in New York City, I never really needed one! On top of that, I couldn’t afford a car, whether new or “(less than) gently used.” I finally wound up with my own wheels when I was given the keys to a 1974 Volkswagen Beetle that its previous owner had abandoned.

Are you an extrovert or an introvert? I proudly admit that I’m an introvert to my very core. Isn’t a priest supposed to be a people person? Yes, and the seminary did what it could to unleash my inner extrovert with classes on public speaking and homiletics.

Let’s be clear about one thing: Serpents don’t talk. They never have, and they never will. The inspired storytellers who were responsible for crafting the Genesis narrative that is Sunday’s first reading knew full well that serpents don’t talk, and the earliest hearers and readers of those words didn’t imagine that they could.

When I was growing up, many of my friends would tell me all the time that being a Christian is easy. Because I went to public school, many of my classmates were intrigued by the fact that my family and I were practicing Catholics. My friends didn’t understand why I took my faith so seriously, especially when I was a teenager.

by Father Alonzo Cox

I am blessed at my parish to have the Missionaries of Charity living in the convent next to the rectory.

by Father Alonzo Cox

Over the almost ten years of my priesthood, I have had the opportunity to share in the happiness and joy with parents who have announced the birth of a child. I have been blessed to see the excitement on the faces of parents when their child is born. It’s a beautiful moment to see parents hold their child for the first time, as tears of joy roll from their eyes.

by Father James Rodriguez

As our nascent new year of ordinary time marches on, and the glow of Christmas grows fainter, Isaiah continues to cry out in our wilderness, challenging us not to become complacent, since “anguish has taken wing, dispelled is darkness.” Though he prophetically looks forward, at the same time he is looking backward, speaking as one who has already seen the promise fulfilled. Such is the trust of true prophets.