On his upper right shoulder were tattooed the words:  VENI  VIDI  VICI.

The middle-aged man pumping gas into his SUV at the pump in front of me didn’t look like a Latin scholar. But his large tattoo opened up a way of conversation on this quite warm early autumn day. No, he answered my query, he was not a student of an ancient language, but rather more of a Roman historian. Since his retirement from the medical profession, he now pursues his lifelong passion of studying the Caesars and their entourage.

In the weeks of mid-autumn, when colors fill the trees and crisp air fills the evenings, advertisements for high schools and colleges fill the pages of diocesan newspapers as 8th graders and 12th graders try to select the place they will call home for the next four years. 

“The chicken runs at midnight” isn’t a sentence you’ll find in your Bible, but it is a divinely inspired statement that brought proof of heaven to Rich Donnelly, a grieving father who needed to find his way back to God.

In a standing room only crowd at the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Church in Ozone Park, more than a thousand people came together with one common goal: to say thank you to Father Paul Palmiotto. I had the honor of attending the Mass on Sept. 29 to celebrate the life and priesthood of an incredible man who was retiring from the priesthood due to an illness that has limited his ability to speak.

In one of His appearances to the disciples after the Resurrection, Christ said to them, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).

I always had a special affinity toward St. Francis of Assisi. Maybe that’s because I was surrounded with animals all my life.

Why study journalism?

As director of the journalism program at St. John’s University, Jamaica, I routinely get that question when the new school year begins.

“You are so precious,” she whispered to the baby in my arms.

I recently completed my eighth silent retreat in the Abbey of Gethsemani near Bardstown, Ky. Its most famous monk was Thomas Merton, and aside from the appeal of silently praying among the same trees he did, I have been drawn there for the immensity of God’s presence I find there. While God is certainly everywhere, I think he vacations in Kentucky!