“Before the bishop blesses the people, I ask that you would pray to the Lord to bless me — the prayer of the people for their bishop.”

The bishop’s vocation retreat is a wonderful opportunity to bond with others and find your vocation. I have been on this retreat three times now, and each experience has been amazing.

At a recent meeting at the Vatican, Pope Francis praised the social aspects of bocce and emphasized that, unlike other sports dominated by billionaire stars, bocce allows “normal people” to excel. “It is a sport that I associate
with a certain type of sociality, of social friendship,” he said.

I had my throat blessed on Feb. 2. I’ll have ashes placed on my forehead on March 5 — both are sacramentals I first learned about at St. Raymond school in East Rockaway, which was then a part of the Diocese of Brooklyn. Sacramentals are usually religious symbols.

Frassati Missions, a volunteer run non-profit dedicated to serving the poor and vulnerable through short-term international and domestic missions, has visited and served the area of Annotto Bay, Jamaica, for seven years. This is our eighth mission trip. Each mission, we tell the new missionaries that it’s not strangers that we will meet. We’re visiting friends.

Feb. 18 is the feast of Blessed Fra Angelico, a Dominican friar and painter of the early Italian Renaissance. When Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1982, he was asked about Fra Angelico’s miracles; he pointed to his paintings, and said, “These are his miracles.”

In these past few weeks, I, like so many others, saw the first snowfall of winter. Since the weather is a perennially popular topic for small talk, it did not take long to realize snowfall receives very different receptions from all those on whom it falls.

This year’s Catholic Schools Week will be my last. After 36 years as a teacher, chairperson, and admissions director at a Catholic high school in the Diocese of Brooklyn, I will soon finalize the paperwork for my pension and hand in my school keys, thus ending my full-time career as an educator.

The Jubilee Year 2025 is upon us, and Pope Francis has asked that we all attempt to be “Pilgrims of Hope,” to witness the love and power of Jesus Christ in the world today. What does that mean in practical terms? How am I to be a pilgrim of hope to the world?

I have trouble talking about the loss without tearing up, as if the smoke and ash from Los Angeles traveled across the country to find me. My in-laws were French immigrants to California, proud Americans, hardworking and simple in their aspirations. Joseph Bischetti knew extreme poverty in France, and he believed the best way to take care of his family was to work hard and buy land. In the mid-1970s, he and his wife Andrée purchased a modest house with a big yard in Pacific Palisades.