I stopped by the public library a couple of years ago to find a book. I did as I always do and made my way to the religion section. Most of the public library fare in this section is miserable. Not worth my time at all. But a couple of titles seemed promising. A book on the saints. A book by JPII. And Confessions of St. Patrick. That’s where I began. Later in the evening, I curled up with my... Read more
Women amaze me. I am a people watcher by profession – and a Catholic people watcher by conversion. I pay attention to people – what they say and do, their personalities and gifts, their strengths and weaknesses – I mull it over. I learn. I wade through it, climb over it, jump in it. Then, I sit back and think some more. And Catholic women amaze me most. The women at daily Mass are steady. Like God-elected representatives for their families. They... Read more
I will be traveling to the Holy Land May 18-28th with the Catholic Press Association as a guest of Israel’s Ministry of Tourism. It is an amazing opportunity & the timing couldn’t be better as my book on Judea will be released by Ave Maria Press later this year. The trip coincides with the Holy Father’s visit to Israel. I look forward to sharing this journey with readers on the blog, through my column in diocesan newspapers, and in the pages... Read more
In the summer of 2009, my husband and I went to a family reunion. John’s aunt told a little story about her mother-in-law. I never met Grandma Bossert. She passed away long before I married into the family. But John’s Aunt Lucia said Grandma had a little straight skirt. She’d owned it for as long as Aunt Lucia could remember. Grandma used the skirt as a kind of measuring tape to monitor weight gain. When she couldn’t get the side... Read more
I was jealous of Catholics. I saw the nuns across the road at the Catholic school when I was in fourth grade. Recess at Lincoln Elementary coincided with recess at St. Patricks. I wanted to go to that school. I wanted to have a nun for a teacher. When we used to shop in Rochester, Minnesota, I would see the nuns with the flying-nun-habit. I wanted to be a nun and wear that. When I had the tonsillectomy at the age... Read more
Once in a while, I see a shoe in the road. It’s odd — a shoe in a road, in a place it obviously doesn’t belong, separated from its mate. It’s almost as odd as seeing a pair of shoes tied together and flung across an overhead wire. You can’t help wondering how it got there. Plain old weird. (Actually, I just learned that the shoes are a message indicating something rather sinister – like a place where one can buy illicit... Read more
Crane Creek was the rambling stream that ran behind our Iowa home when I was a child. It was the swelling water that rushed mightily in the spring and flooded the basements, except ours – thanks to the sump pump the board of trustees included in the building plan of the new parsonage. The creek was the frozen play land where I first learned to keep my ankles firm when they wanted to twist and buckle in my new... Read more
Caryll Houselander said it best when she wrote, “I faced a blank future . . . it was still impossible to imagine Our Lady doing anything that I would do, for the very simple reason that I simply could not imagine her doing anything at all.” I marked the passage in red. It was 2007. And I knew Mary was the Immaculate Conception, the Queen of Heaven and Earth, Our Lady of Grace. I believed in the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption and... Read more
He just keeps doing it – loving them into listening, loving them into looking, loving them into letting-the-wall-fall. Who is he? He is Pope Francis. And he keeps reminding us that we must not trip over the things that have always come between us as Christians. My friends, we have certainly learned by now that we cannot make progress in this quest for unity if we keep going about it as we always have. We must focus our first gaze on... Read more
Never underestimate the Holy Spirit in revealing those things one needs to jettison. Recently, the Holy Spirit sat me down and had a come-to-Jesus chat with me. I was replaying someone’s offense over and over in my mind. Every time I remembered the offense, I would feel the betrayal anew, which led to another act of forgiveness. My memory was hijacking me. I needed some help from the gifts of the Holy Spirit. A little wisdom. Some understanding. A helping... Read more
Denise Bossert
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