An elderly priest was reminiscing about the earliest days of his priesthood, which occurred during World War II. Father Smith, as we’ll call him, served in a rural diocese, with many small parishes scattered throughout the countryside; he was...
I was never really a fan of the Star Trek TV series, but I did end up seeing and enjoying most of the Star Trek movies. One of my favorite characters was Mr. Spock, the first officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise: a natural second-in-command who was...
Whenever Mass is celebrated, the Scripture readings are taken from a book called the Lectionary, from the Latin word lectio, which means “reading.” For some centuries, the Church had a lectionary in which the same passages were repeated on any given...
Once there was a woman—let’s call her Mabel—who decided to walk the famous Camino, the pilgrimage route that ends at the tomb of the Apostle St. James, at the church of Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. Every year over 400,000 pilgrims make...
A Christian evangelist who went about preaching the Gospel was once asked his occupation by a stranger, and he answered, “I work for the Lord.” “Oh, really,” said the other man; “and how much does that pay?” “Not very much,” the evangelist admitted...
The apostles weren’t the only saints in the Church’s history who had bad experiences while at sea. St. Paul, of course, was shipwrecked three different times; others who experienced shipwreck included St. Francis of Assisi, St. Margaret of Scotland...
Just over a month ago the city of Detroit hosted the NFL Draft, and it was a wonderful, successful, and highly-praised event that brought our region many compliments and much favorable publicity—but on that same Saturday at the end of April...
One day a girl brought home her report card. Most of the grades were all right, and a few were even very good—but there was one glaring exception that stood out like a sore thumb, no doubt due to a lack of effort on the girl’s part in that...
