Catechetical programs have resumed activities or will soon start in most Catholic parishes. Children, youth, young adults, and adults prepare to return to sessions where they will learn and reflect on their faith. 

For Joseph Pfeifer, the badge number 1513 that he received when joining the New York City Fire Department more than 40 years ago reminded him of his favorite gospel verse, John 15:13: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

The feast day of the first Filipino martyr-saint, San Lorenzo Ruiz, will be celebrated on September 28.

Seemingly from the time I was in the cradle, my Catholic parents instilled in me the importance of going to Mass religiously (no pun intended) but were never able to articulate why we went, answering only “because we are Catholic, and that is what good Catholics do.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.