I was just walking my dog on a peaceful Sunday afternoon. From beyond a grassy knoll of lavender and roses, someone beckoned me from a second floor apartment balcony. I ...

I couldn't help it. "Good riddance," I mumbled, as the news came through that Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th President of the United States, had died on Saturday, June 5, ...

Although the horrors of slavery, Jim Crow laws and segregated facilities may no longer exist in the United States, there are other, less visible and less formalized aspects of racial prejudice that persist--even, unfortunately, within ...

I'm a big fan of peace and harmony. Because of this, I generally don't struggle much when it comes to forgiving others. Subconsciously, it feels far better than carrying an unpleasant conflict around in my ...

To an older generation of Roman Catholics, the mention of traditional devotions like the eucharistic adoration and liturgy of the hours might elicit either chilling memories of ...

Smarty Jones, your 2004 Kentucky Derby champion, is God's Horse. Seabiscuit for the new milleniumYou see a horse like that and a story like this maybe once in a lifetime. Twice, if you've seen Seabiscuit. Smarty came ...

"Why is there a monkey on the tabernacle?" my friend asked herself as she walked into church one Sunday morning. Apparently, a religious education teacher was planning a discussion on Noah's Ark for the second grade ...

Last month, I freed my rosary from hiding. We've had a tumultuous relationship. I never used the thing on my own, dragging it out mainly for various parochial school events. My rosary was a gift. ...

A Grad Student's Spiritual Adventure in Brusselsby Jessica M. AlampayLeaving homeSt. Mark's University Parish in Santa Barbara was like my second ...

You may not envision being called into relationship with God through a classified ad. Nevertheless, perhaps God is calling you to live the vocation of singlehood—that is, the vocation of celibacy, of intimate union with the ...

There's been yet another casualty in the culture wars that have raged in the United States over the past decade. On August 18, 2004, Deal Hudson, publisher of the ...

The scandal of Catholic clergy sexual abuse of children is, after two years, still on the front pages of the nation's papers. But playwright Michael Murphy, director David Zak, ...

Fr. Jim Martin's recent article recounting the worst homilies ever heard sent an all-too-familiar chill through my born and bred Catholic bones. Unfortunately, I've also sat in the pews many times thinking that ...

With a victory in the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, June 5, 2004, Smarty Jones will have captured horseracing's most elusive prize—the Triple Crown. No horse has done it since ...

"All of us had suffered greatly to get to this moment�I had eaten little and slept not at all since leaving Camp 2, two days earlier. Every time I coughed, the pain from my torn ...

Calling it a "vacation" might be a bit of a stretch, but through his correspondence with friends back in the United States, 29-year-old, Minneapolis native Paul Lickteig offers up ...

St. Mark's University Parish in Santa Barbara was like my second home. During my time there, I invited and welcomed people to parish ...

The small, white-haired woman leading the discussion hesitated. She coughed and bit her lip but managed to read the information on the paper clutched in her shaking hand. She ...

"I can definitely see you as a priest," my friend told me."Thanks," I said. This was a helpful insight, since I'd like to be a priest. "But the thing ...

"It's a boy," my brother-in-law said with great shock as he stood before a roomful of nail-biting family members and friends. The stunned pandemonium that followed shook the desk ...