Do your summer plans include planting a garden? To my mind, gardening is one of the most hopeful acts of joy, and joyful acts of hope, that I have seen.
Up Front and Personal
Invoking Mary’s Intercession
We honor Mary throughout this month of August. For starters, we celebrate two important feast days that are linked together by an octave.
Remembering the Church of My Youth
There are many reasons why I love the Catholic Church. I was raised in the faith of my parents. From early childhood, I loved the mysticism, the rites, the sacramental vestments, the statues of the Virgin Mary, the Saints, and the prayers in Latin, which seemed more spiritual than what we have today.
Celebrating 200 Years Of a Unique Parish
In the summers of 1959 and 1960, several seminarians and I assisted the priests of the parish of St. James Cathedral (not yet a Basilica) in taking a census of Catholics in the neighborhood.
Genuflecting Amidst The Gentrified
The only thing I knew for sure about this daunting past year of teaching children our three-in-one God’s dimensionality is that it came after nearly two years of faith being a flat-screen experience. My surroundings of Williamsburg rose to the purpose.
The Light of Jesus In the Darkness
On Friday, June 24, on the feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, the U.S. Supreme Court announced the overturning of Roe V. Wade. Among the first reactions was the outcry of a threat to freedom.
Friends Celebrate 200 Years of Service
On Saturday, June 11, 2022, three other priests and I celebrated 50 years since our ordination. All four of us are Redemptorist Missionaries.
A Newborn Child Is Always a Blessing
“This is my brother,” my 3-year-old niece Jacqueline said, gently patting my sister’s eight-month pregnant belly. Then she proudly showed us the plush lion she planned to share with her new sibling.
Pentecost Celebrated In Times Square
Pentecost is the celebration, not simply the event, that occurred in the Upper Room when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and Mary, the Mother of Jesus. It is the celebration of the presence and action of that Holy Spirit, alive and animating the Church today. That presence and action of the Spirit were on display in Times Square, the Crossroads of the World, on Friday, June 3, in an imaginative and exciting way.
May God Go With You, the Class of 2022
As a teacher, I have mixed feelings about graduations. While commencements launch new beginnings for graduates, they are also bittersweet farewells.