Traipsing through Oak Openings Metropark On this first day of autumn, a day suddenly 20 degrees cooler than yesterday’s last day of summer, I took the red trail in the metropark. Every step put a few more grains of sand into my tennis shoes, as I ascended to a sand

27/3=9 or 27/3 could = 8 remainder 3 I hated third-grade math, especially division. My teacher insisted that 3 into 27 is 9—always, immutable, indisputable. But what if I have two friends with whom I want to share 27 pieces of candy? We wouldn’t eat them all at once. We

The Church honors Mary, the Mother of God, four times within four weeks from mid-August to mid-September: the Assumption (August 15), the Queenship (August 22), the Birth of Mary (September 8), and the Sorrowful Mother (September 15). My two favorite feasts are the first and last. Belief in the Assumption

Be On the Lookout Stories and movies of suspense often have a scene in which someone is on the lookout. In times of fear being on the lookout comes quite naturally. Should being on the lookout ever come “unnaturally”? Gregory Boyle in his book Barking to the Choir writes: “…be

The life—and death–of Senator John McCain proved there is always a larger view and a larger love. You’ve probably read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. His books begins by asking the reader to look at the lens through which he or she sees the

The saints knew how to evangelize. It seems they had one rule: go to the people; don’t wait for them to come to you. Missionary saints like St. Paul, St. Patrick, St. Francis Xavier, and countless others traveled the globe to tell others about Jesus Christ. Other saints, like St.

Sr. Mary Dean Pfahler SND Parish Ministry Director / Spiritual Director St. Bartholomew Catholic Church Long Beach CA Books let you know they want to be read…. I was in South Carolina as the house guest of Denise, a friend of Springbank Retreat Center for Ecospirituality and the Arts. While

A couple walked into the parish office and said they had phoned ahead to ask for a meeting space. As I was showing them the community room, the wife excitedly told me that she was going to meet her birth mother. Some time ago the wife had graduated from our

Summarizing Two Great Books in One Word: Relationship This past week I began reading two books. The first The Divine Dance by Richard Rohr was one I’ve tried to get hold of since its publication in 2016. The second is Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship by

The Way Forward is the Way Inward Our readers may know that the four United States provinces of the Sisters of Notre Dame are in a process of becoming one province over the next two years. Some efforts toward unification have been in the works over the past few years,