I Never Told You! My Column Won an Award!

Earlier this year when I was really involved with the pneumonia, I learned that “Ora Pro Nobis”, my regular column for The Catholic Answer, had been honored with an award from the Catholic Press Association:

Really cool, right? Hey, I am grateful for any kind word! And 2013 was the year I really got comfortable writing stuff like this, and this, and a few more.

As I never cease to tell you when each issue comes out, it is an privilege to write regularly for The Catholic Answer, which is a terrific, informative magazine and one that I believe to be essential to a Catholic household, particularly if you have kids who, when bored, will grab the magazine on the coffee table and start flipping. In our latest issue, they’d see me writing on Culture Wars, Sacramentals and Wise Men Three, which incorporated aspects of other columns in the same issue while discussing the turmoil being faced by Christians in Iraq:

I once thought I had lost a favorite rosary – an inexpensive wooden one, easily replaced – but until I found it three days later, I had been inconsolable. In truth, I didn’t need that specific rosary, or any, really, in order to pray, but during the countless hours spent using that simple strand — and in the solutions discovered and prayers answered while fingering those beads — they had become a part of me, a means by which I could come to recognize myself, and my faith, and even the beloved family and friends I had prayerfully entwined within its links. The idea of not having such a treasure at the ready was unthinkable to me. How much more so for a Christian under particular stress and threat, and lacking even the comfort of a favorite prayer rope, or the reassuring friendship found in a holy Icon?
Since Joseph fled with Mary and Jesus to Egypt, the church has kept moving ahead of evil. But. . .

You can read the rest over there.

By the way, how faithful are the Iraqi Christians who are currently in exile and homeless in the land? This faithful:

These beautiful pictures of Christmas prayers and glowing nativity scenes hide a much darker reality.
Hundreds of Iraqi Christians, who now occupy these makeshift tents in Erbil, were forced to abandon their homes to escape the wrath of Islamic State fighters.
They are safe from immediate danger in this camp built around the Mazar Mar Eillia Catholic Church in Ankawa.
But dropping temperatures pose a serious threat to those who hurriedly left their homes without their possessions or winter clothes.

Check out the pictures…very moving.

And thanks, Catholic Press Association, even though belated! I had the ‘monia. Now I only have the pleurisy. Next year, hopefully, the sniffles!