When our son Liam, now 20, was in second grade, I have a clear memory of his focus on Catholicism. It was the year of his first communion, and in his Catholic...
Our Faith
Essays and reporting on theology and scripture that put our faith in the context of everyday life.
When I made my final profession as a Benedictine oblate last summer, Brother Luke, one of the monks at the monastery I’d just pledged myself to, gave me a...
When Katie and Kevin’s son Matthew was 2, Katie was concerned that he was getting lost in between his older brother Bennett and his baby sister Annabelle. “He...
“Why do you send your boys to a Catholic school?” my sons’ pediatrician asked, looking at the St. Monica school sweatshirts and uniform pants my two boys had...
When I was in my early twenties, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). MS is an autoimmune disease that causes the immune system to attack the central...
For decades a friend’s dad took his cars to a mechanic who had started a Ph.D. but ended up hanging out his shingle working on cars. Most adults in our...
No story is faceless. Every action we take—every change in foreign policy or bomb dropped—affects real people. James Foley understood that. He died trying to...
I’ve always liked the sign of peace. As a child, it was my favorite part of our all-school liturgies. The sign of peace provided an excuse to move around a...
One of my core childhood memories is of singing at Mass. It’s neither a sappy nor a prayerful story, however. This was one of my rare moments of rebellion...
This is part of a series of two essays on how to make a successful pilgrimage. You can read the other part, on eight practices of a good pilgrimage, here...
