Welcome!

If you’re looking for “The Deacon’s Bench,” you’re in the right place.

Welcome to my new home at Aleteia. Thanks for dropping by. We are still unpacking and getting settled—pardon our dust—but things should be ship-shape soon.  Posting may be light for a while, since my schedule is a little crazy right now and I’m battling a head cold that will require frequent trips to the Kleenex box. (Sniff, honk). But you’ll find what you’re looking for here, eventually. (Where did I pack that corkscrew?) In time, my archives from Patheos will also be in place here.

But as we settle in: join me, please, in this simple blessing for a new home, from the Book of Blessings:

When Christ took flesh through the Blessed Virgin Mary, he made his home with us. Let us now pray that he will enter this home and bless it with his presence. May he always be here with you, share in your joys, comfort you in your sorrows. Inspired by his teachings and example, seek to make your new home before all else a dwelling place of love, diffusing far and wide the goodness of Christ.

Lord,
be close to your servants
who move into this home
and ask for your blessing.

Be their shelter when they are at home,
their companion when they are away,
and their welcome guest when they return.
And at last receive them
into the dwelling place you have prepared for them
in your Father’s house,
where you live for ever and ever. R. Amen.

Amen. Stay tuned. There’s much more to come!