On this day in 1871, a group of priests from the English-based Missionary Society of St. Joseph, known as the Mill Hill Fathers, came to Baltimore on a special mission. They were to work toward the evangelization of African-Americans, a big concenr of Church authorities in the years following the Civil War. The Mill Hills were the first group to launch such a project. In the following years, as more Americans joined, they formed a separate community, the Josephites, which... Read more

This is one of the most interesting books I have ever read on American Catholic history. It came out in 1990 and is still in publication. It’s an overview of African-American Catholic history from colonial times to the present. Highly recommended! Read more

A veil is spread between this world and the next. We mortal men, range up and down in it, to and fro, and see nothing… In the Gospel this veil is not removed: it remains: but every now and then marvelous disclosures are made to us of what is behind it.Cardinal Newman Read more

Today marks the day that Thomas Merton was received into the Catholic Church at Corpus Christi Church, Manhattan. In The Seven Storey Mountain, Merton wrote of this experience: First of all, I knelt at the altar of Our Lady [now also the Blessed Sacrament altar] where Father Moore received my abjuration of heresy and schism. Then we went to the baptistry, in a little dark corner by the main door. . . . After that, I went into the confessional... Read more

Henriette DeLille (1813–1862) founded the Catholic order of the Sisters of the Holy Family, made up of free women of color, in New Orleans. The order provided nursing care and a home for orphans, later establishing schools as well. In 1989 the order formally opened its cause with the Vatican in the canonization of Henriette DeLille. She was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1813. Her father, Jean-Baptiste (de Lille) Lille (Sarpi) Sarpy (French/Italian) was born in 1762 in Fumel,... Read more

Mother Veronica (Miss Sophie Leeves), Foundress of the Sisters of the Apostolic Carmel, Mangalore, was deeply religious and highly intellectual. She was English, the daughter of an Anglican Chaplain to the British Embassy at Constantinople. Born on October 1, 1823, she was received into the Catholic Church on February 2, 1850. A life of prayer and renunciation culminated in the dedication of her whole self to the education of youth in the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of... Read more

NOSTALGIA By Sister M. Angelita Sometimes when autumn’s mellow sunlight spillsOn painted pomp of wooded heights the while,My heart grows homesick for the eternal hillsBathed in the fadeless splendor of His smile. Read more

When you see it exposed, say to yourself: Thanks to this Body, I am no longer dust and ashes, I am no more a captive but a free man: hence I hope to obtain heaven and the good things that are there in store for me, eternal life, the heritage of the angels, companionship with Christ; death has not destroyed this Body which was pierced with nails and scourged… This is that Body which was one covered with blood, pierced... Read more

America’s first Bishop, John Carroll, was a Jesuit until the order was suppressed in 1773. One of his great ambitions was to start a Catholic college in the United States. In 1789, not long after he became bishop, he secured property for such a school in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. On this day in 1791 Georgetown College opened under the direction of the Sulpician Fathers who had just come from France. In 1805, after the Jesuit ordfer was... Read more

Son of Andrew Kalinowski, prominent mathmatics professor at the College of Nobility, and Josepha Poionska Kalinowski. Studied at his father‘s school. Though he felt a call to the priesthood, Joseph decided on college first. Studied zoology, chemistry, agriculture, and apiculture at the Institute of Agronomy in Hory Horki, Russia, and at the Academy of Military Engineering at Saint Petersburg, Russia. Lieutenant in the Russian Military Engineering Corps in 1857. Planned and supervised the construction of the railway between Kursk and... Read more