Every year, like clockwork, my dogs receive a blessing on October 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi. The warranty on the blessing doesn’t wear out, but I...
Church holidays
Discover insights and guidance for observing church holidays, from Advent and Christmas to Easter, Pentecost, and saints’ feast days.
Liturgy is a river: We come to the same spot many times, yet never enter the same water twice. With the river, it’s because the water’s always in motion; the...
Philips describes how Easter season often brings feelings of conviction and discomfort over his self-centeredness. It must have been about the time that I was...
It’s almost as if Mel Gibson’s The Passion has come to life. In Chicago’s largely Hispanic Pilsen neighborhood, some 7,000 people gather at...
The kids in the Catholic seventh grade classroom—Hispanics, Filipinos, African Americans, and my own Irish American offspring—took on a project to highlight...
As we’re reminded every Advent, our Catholic Christmas customs are somewhat at odds with the secular “holiday season,” which starts before Thanksgiving and...
For three days every year Mexicans and Mexican Americans gather for Día de los Muertos. In cemeteries and homes people come together to remember their deceased...
Early in our marriage my husband, Stephen, an Irish immigrant to the United States, was having trouble sleeping. He was happy enough with his new life in...
She spoke little English — just isolated words you had to build the intended sentence around in your mind. But it never seemed to get in the way of our...
The world was in the midst of the Great Depression in 1931 and the memories of World War I were still very much alive in the minds of Europeans when in Poland...
