Politics & Culture

Showing Up — Days, Months, Even Years After a Disaster

‘Safe With Him’: What We Can Learn from Father Mychal Judge

The first picture I ever saw of Father Mychal Judge was a photo of his dead body. In the days following 9/11, I was haunted by the image of four men carrying the New York City fire department chaplain away from the Twin Towers. With the firefighters he served, Judge answered the calls for help, only to lose his life at Ground Zero. He was the first registered death of 9/11.

At first, I saw him as a tragic figure, a searing example of this country’s wounds. Since learning about his life, though, my perspective has shifted. Now I see him as a symbol of compassion, a vivid example of what it means to heal and be healed.

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Work

Renewing the Spirit: A Catholic Guide to Overcoming Career Burnout

As the holiday season draws nearer, so do my responsibilities as a mother and college professor. Meeting work deadlines, traveling for business, attending committee meetings,…

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Catholic Social Teaching

Community Service: How You Can Act on Catholic Social Teaching Every Day

During my many years of volunteer service (primarily in hunger relief organizations), I’ve witnessed a frustrating phenomenon. While people (admirably) tend to focus on opportunities…

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Scripture

Bless Us, Oh Lord, for These Thy Gifts: The Holiness of Mealtimes

A few years ago, I was asked to sit on an alumnae panel at my high school to talk about life in college and beyond.…

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Reflection on Oslo Attacks: Overcoming Fear

Ever since the Oslo attacks my heart has started racing a little faster every time I board the U-Bahn in the morning. It races even faster when I disembark and make the 10-minute walk through the incredibly tourist-dense section of Berlin where I work. Pushing past Gypsies, I scan German, American, and British tourists’ faces checking out the remains of the Berlin Wall and can’t help but wonder, could something like that ever happen here? Oslo is such a sleepy European city; surely Berlin has to be an even bigger target. Quite frankly, it scares me.

I try to quiet my racing thoughts when they start circling irrationally. I hate that when I am afraid I feel like I am letting the terrorists win.

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Responding to Hunger, Drought and Famine in East Africa

Fleeing war and famine, fighting off attacks from bandits and lions, thousands of refugees are flooding out of Somalia on foot each week. Busted Halo contributor Laura Sheahen, a communications officer with the humanitarian aid group Catholic Relief Services, looks back on her first days in some of the refugee camps that are receiving them. Let us remember our sisters and brothers in East Africa in our prayers.

Day one

Small plane to airstrip in Dadaab, a tiny, broken-down town in northeast Kenya. Blinding clouds of dust billow from the car in front of us as we make our way to our local partner’s compound. Dust instantly coats everything we carry. The same dust has swallowed up any hope of growing crops or raising livestock across the border in Somalia, where the drought and famine are worst.

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