Until I had children, I didn’t understand Mass as an athletic event. Before we even get to the homily, a point when many Mass-goers get to sit and relax, I...
In the Pews
Most people don’t dream of working for the institutional church; it’s not high on the list for childhood career days or suggestions of what to be when one...
In 2016 Lauren Bowman, an eighth grader at St. Christine School in Youngstown, Ohio, died at home of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The 13-year-old, who loved...
Attending Sunday Mass last year over Independence Day weekend, I watched as the priest gave the final blessing and a man a couple rows ahead genuflected and...
While living at a monastery in India, Brahmachari Vrajvihari Sharan took turns cooking meals for 150 people. So when he became a chaplain at Georgetown this...
I basically lived at Bed Bath & Beyond in the weeks before moving to college. From memo boards to mini fridges, shower caddies to twin XL sheets, the home...
I learned more the time my sophomore floor mates and I tried pulling an all-nighter than I did in an entire semester of Statistics 101. With all due...
A wet knot on a pair of sneakers is hard to untie—even harder when they’re on your feet. As the pastor of a multigenerational, multicultural, and multilingual...
I was in a tiny wooden town in Alaska recently when I walked past a tiny wooden church. I find small wooden sacred places irresistible, whether they are...
Every week, hands plunge into the earth at St. Benedict the African East Catholic Church in Englewood, a neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. Around five...
