Last week I said that for all I knew, COVID-19 would just go away. I said that wasn’t likely, and I was right: it hasn’t gone away. It’s become so serious that public Masses in the diocese of Rome have been canceled for the next few weeks. Here in America, the cases and the death toll are piling up. The stock market is crashing. People are scared. Dioceses and churches all over the country are reminding people that not only... Read more
Hi, Folks. I’m using the photo of the gerbera daisies again, and you know what that means: I will be on later with a new post worth reading, and do watch the Steel Magnificat Facebook Page where I’m re-sharing old Lenten meditations throughout the season. Just now I need to post the monthly-or-so tin cup rattle. This is the most embarrassing part of blogging, the part where I remind people that Steel Magnificat and my family run almost entirely... Read more
It was gray, cold, and wet again. It has been gray, cold, and wet, for months. We didn’t exactly have a winter this year, but some kind of three-month limbo where nothing as beautiful as snow happened. It rained for weeks. There were no icicles, no intricate frost, only rain and mist. There was no smell of ice to cover the Steubenville sulfur reek. I was finally well enough for a quick trip out of the house, and I was... Read more
When I share stories like the one about the Cherry Boutique, or the trouble with poor neighborhoods or the mystery of free lunches at the pool, I get an outpouring of comments from my readers that they had no idea this kind of thing happened, and asking what they can do. That’s one of the reasons I share stories about poverty up here in Northern Appalachia so often: because It needs to be seen. I’ve witnessed a lot of terrible... Read more
When I was a teenager, I knew a family that was staunchly pro-life: they prayed Pro-life Rosaries and went to the March for Life every year. They had a gaggle of children, very close in age and cute as buttons. Sometimes they homeschooled and sometimes they went to a Catholic school. One year, one of them brought back chicken pox from that school. And then, before long, they all had chicken pox. This used to be how people dealt with... Read more
It happened again this Lent as always: the anxious Ash Wednesday discussion about fasting and abstinence and what, exactly, counts as abstinence. Yes, you can eat alligator. No, you’re not supposed to have a turkey burger. No one seems to know exactly what to do with the new meat replacements like the Impossible Whopper. Many people are pointing out that they like fish better than meat so it doesn’t seem like penance to enjoy a nice piece of salmon or... Read more
We were at the Wellsburg Apple Festival, on a warm fall day. I don’t know why this memory keeps coming back to me now, seven years later and in the winter, but I’ve been thinking about it all weekend. I don’t know why the gathering was called the Apple Festival. We weren’t near an orchard and I didn’t see any apples for sale. It was just a generic small-town fair with food trucks, a bouncy house, and stalls selling... Read more
By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land? If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not... Read more
Today, on facebook, a volunteer from The Friendship Room wrote: We have a woman who lives a desperate lifestyle, she is near despair, and today is her birthday. Can anyone perhaps bring us a cake for her? She has no clothing , she wears medium tops and maybe a size 10 pants . She only has sandals for her feet and she wears size 9. She would also like hair ties and bands , a hair brush and clips She is... Read more
Have you made your plans for Lent yet? What are you going to do? I always like to think in terms of “what are you going to do?” instead of “what are you going to give up?” because Lent is about penance, and “penance” just means “turning around.” How are you planning to turn to Christ starting next week? Are you going to make extra time to pray and meditate, and read something enlightening? May I humbly suggest a... Read more
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