Thwack. The kickball ricochets off the front of our house and the arguing begins. “Safe!” yells Henry. “Run to second!” yells Thomas. “I got you out!” yells...
Catholic Voices
First-person reflections on scriptural interpretation, theology, and Catholic social teaching.
By chance I was on campus late at night recently, and realized that I could savor Mass in one of the residence halls; there are ten such halls on my campus...
On an exotic vacation our son took with my brother and sister-in-law, all travelers brought a playlist of five songs that said something about them. Fallen not...
President Trump frequently spoke of urban America during his campaign as a “disaster.” In his imagination U.S. cities are mired in 1970s-era crime...
In her poem, “Mysteries, Yes,” Mary Oliver begins, “Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood.” How grass nourishes animals, how gravity...
What is the word for the emotion you experience when someone you have admired deeply behaves in a manner that is the crushing inverse of what you had come to...
The taxi driver asked God’s blessings on me as we pulled into the departures lane at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. I was traveling to a small Midwest town to teach...
I was visiting missionary friends in Turkana, a remote, arid, and desolate region of Kenya, in the summer of 2001. My friends had asked me to help baptize 40...
During my last semester of graduate school, I asked Jesus for a sign of what to do next. I felt anxious not knowing where I was headed or who would be coming...
My vocation is to write. When I’m tempted to distraction or guilt over all the other work that needs doing in the church and the world, I must repeat this to...
