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“Children aren’t supposed to die before their parents. I never imagined I would lose my son, Kieran, at thirty-two. I thought he would marry, have his own children, that I would be a grandmother one day.“

On Ash Wednesday, it’s standing room only at our church – with IU students! The St. Paul Catholic Center offered five – yes, five – Masses with Ash Wednesday services, all jam-packed!  And lines three deep against the back wall! Something’s going on.

Solemnity, Annunciation of the Lord … the Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall be with child…

Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary  Feria IV, Passion Week. Dixit autem María: Ecce ancílla Dómini, fiat mihi secúndum verbum tuum.

Pentecost, (Novus Ordo) Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.
Pentecost Sunday (Tridentine Latin Mass) Veni, Sancte Spíritus, et emítte cǽlitus lucis tuæ rádium.

Fifth Sunday of Advent (Novus Ordo)
Master, the one you love is ill… This illness is not to end in death…
Passion Sunday (Tridentine Latin Mass)
Do me justice, O God, and fight my fight against a faithless people…

On the Danger to which Tepidity Exposes the Soul  “But Jesus hid himself.” John, 8:59.   He enlightens all; but he cannot enlighten those who voluntarily shut their eyes to the light; from them the Saviour hides himself…

First Sunday of Lent, (Novus Ordo, Year A)
The LORD God formed man .. so man became a living being…
I Sunday of Lent,  (Tridentine Latin Mass)
He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will deliver him and glorify him; with length of days I will gratify him.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the spiritual combat of Lent. Dom Prosper Guéranger notes we face two enemies, internal passions and external devils, both from our pride and refusal to obey God. God forgave him his sin, but He punished him.

Ash Wedneday (Novus Ordo, Year A)  …Rend your hearts, not your garments… return to the LORD, your God

Ash Wednesday (Tridentine Latin Mass) … thou hast mercy upon all… and overlookest the sins of men for the sake of repentance.

Subzero cold is inhuman. It bites deep into the fingers, even with gloves, and bones are like interior icicles. When nature, usually mild and comforting, turns malevolent, we discover machines keep us alive.

No sports season has been more thrilling than Indiana University football’s 16-0 record last season…  until one brutal hit left its star quarterback lying in the grass… and all the euphoria popped…  revealing the ugly truth of tackle football we choose to ignore…

What is meaning but a droplet

of the ordinary in which

we glimpse something

true and beautiful, slight but real?

He was a very old man … in his late 70s… absorbed in one of the simplest tasks on earth …but his movement had a dignity that I do not remember seeing in the city with its more important tasks.

Below us was a crowd, men in business suits pressed together… the desire in those eyes and hands, each one searching for the feel, the touch, the connection with the force we call truth, as if through the shake of a hand, that which Sam Ervin had done could run into their bodies and erase their sins…

Was she a hundred now.… One hundred?… How could that be…  in the bathroom, with her glasses still on… her eyes cleared… a face flashed in the mirror, this shriveled head of some strange old lady… is that me?

I was standing on the white deck around a blue pool, shielding my eyes from the sun… Her face was too close… my bare feet burning on the cement… two parallel walls encircling us and the pool like a corral… 

First Sunday of Advent (Novus Ordo, Year A) …before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage…
I Sunday of Advent (Tridentine Latin Mass) To You I lift up my soul: in You, O my God, I trust; let me not be put to shame;

On the General Judgment  “And they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of Heaven with much power and majesty.” Matt. xxiv. 30.

In today’s reading, the uncaring rich man was cast into hell, the impoverished Lazarus was “carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham.” Which of one these are we, the U.S. Catholics at Mass?

If Christianity is ever to have any credibility in the future, we are going to need many more gentle, persuasive and strong leaders to show a different way of being Christian than the shrill, cruel and politicized theocrats who dominate the news every day.

In downtown Oakland, at 4 o’clock in the morning, I go out for an early coffee. No one is around… yet, there’s the skunk, the sickening burning smell coming from … a security guard doing his rounds… lights illuminating ghost-like clouds trailing behind wherever he goes…

It’s a Sunday evening at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, and the pews are full. Redeemer is a conservative Evangelical Christian congregation, but the parishioners don’t fit the easy Bible Belt stereotypes.

Holy Trinity Church was a landmark in the tree-lined, thriving center of Duquesne, PA, outside Pittsburgh, where my cousins grew up in the 1960s. Then the steel mill closed, and the town and church collapsed.

In teaching writing, we teachers have taught our students all wrong. We’ve taught them to follow dead formulae rather than follow their hearts, worry about grammatical rules more than say what they honestly think…

Turkish novelist Ahmet Altan was imprisoned on false charges in Turkey.  In prison, he wrote “I’m watching the Coronavirus virus unfold from a Turkish prison. This is why I’m hopeful.” – From the Washington Post, May 24,2020.

After hundreds of airplane flights, I still feel a thrill when I’m stepping into the airplane and look down into that space below my legs, between stairway and fuselage, earth and sky… a space that becomes 35,000 feet deep in the air. 

It’s early morning in Oakland’s Skid Row, and Steve F. is coming at us… bouncing from leg to leg…  grinning his manic drug grin.. Artie G. and I dread his approach… until he says something I’ll never forget… 

When I hear about freewriting, it feels like … freedom…! Like a bird in the sky, a leaf in the wind, la ripple on the lake at dawn, the first sign of life, the first heartbeat of a baby in a mother’s womb …

The underlying religious crisis is plain for all to see. In the Middle East conflict in 2014, only four powers are secular, and the other six claim to base their identities on their religions: Judaism, Islam, and behind the scenes, Christian Zionism.

Try this Financial Worksheet!  1. Add up your total assets. 2. Add up your total assets a month later. 3. Calculate the change: 2-1 = 3. Is #3 positive? You’ve saved money, and your income is greater than your expenses. If #3 negative, you’re in the hole and sliding down the rabbit hole of debt and illusion. All the rest is details.

Many readers responded to my original essay on our debt-driven way of living in “Going Broke on $44,500 a Year,” published in the San Jose Mercury News. Here are some of the suggestions that they offered to solve the middle class debt crisis.

Are you careful with money, yet still sinking into debt?  The decline of the middle class began in the 1980s, when social values eroded and warnings against debt were cast aside.

We confuse not having peace with not being aware of the peace we possess. When… storm-tossed, we only perceive the storm… we have not lost our peace of soul, but only our awareness of it…