A girl named Julia was about to celebrate her seventeenth birthday, but it was a very sad occasion: her beloved grandfather had died a few weeks earlier. The two of them had been very close, and this was the first time Julia had experienced the...
During another drought of inspiration, I searched through my essays that were never submitted for publication. During this search, I stumbled on an essay I had called Heaven on My Mind. I wrote it, probably after my first wife died, circa early...
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...
I love this season of the year. I love the crispness in the air and the colors of the leaves changing. While I don’t like the shortening of our days, I like how nature is telling us that time and change stop for no one. The Church is in accord with...
I recently came across a memorable article from my archives. According to an old issue of the New York Times Clive James was dying but as I remember it, he was very good-natured about it. Once a three-fisted drinker and smoker, Mr. James, 75, was...
Several years ago, I published an essay for my blog the Gospel Truth that contained my musings on life after death. It created some interesting feedback. My treatment of salvation caused the greatest concern. My main critic erroneously thought that...
For the Jews, 2000 years ago, there were 613 precepts of the law, some bigger, more important than others considered less important; of these precepts about half were given as positive commands and the other half as negative commands. Hence, for...
As the Bard of Avon questioned several hundred years ago in Romeo and Juliet, What is in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet. Personally, I think it would mean a great deal. Stinkweed, Skunk...
