Some Catholic traditions are strange. After all, our “big tent” of traditions includes relics—oftentimes the body parts of saints—apparitions, weeping statues...
Glad You Asked
Christians have fasted (gone without food) and abstained (gone without certain foods, especially meat) since the beginning. The Book of Genesis teaches that...
When I was a boy attending Catholic school, the annunciation was one of the joyful mysteries that the good sisters had me commit to memory: The angel visits...
I called my mother last night. She’s 91 and lives alone in another state. Because of the COVID-19 state of emergency, I wanted to be sure she was OK and not...
In the Ash Wednesday gospel reading Jesus directs us to clean up: “Put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may not be seen by others”...
It’s late morning on the Tuesday of Holy Week. I’m fumbling around my desk when an email flashes across the computer screen. “homily partner?” reads the...
In a stroke of luck, I once found a cookbook that I had been planning to purchase—Beard on Bread (Knopf)—in a box labeled “free” along the curb. The best part...
Growing up, my siblings and I would take turns arranging the figures in my parents’ large crèche. I liked to display the three magi walking in a procession up...
Names matter. St. John Paul II clearly writes in Dies Domini (On Keeping the Lord’s Day Holy) that Sabbath (the seventh day of the week) and Sunday (the first...
If you’re hankering for the storybook heaven in which you get your heart’s desire and live happily ever after, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews just may...
