There really are times when we Catholics give Protestantism a good name. In men’s group today, one of our most learned members read from a chapter on Mary in the Apocrypha, from The Thousand Faces of the Virgin Mary by George H. Tavard. At the end, I could all but feel the pain of Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli. We human beings can complicate things so much. Mary, as presented in the four Gospels, is the slightest of characters. After the... Read more

Katie belongs to a book club that meets once a month on Thursdays. Oprah—well, we know about Oprah and books. I think it’s high time for YIM Catholic to host a book club, and I propose meeting every Thursday evening. So let’s begin immediately, with Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton. The YIM Catholic Book Club (YIMCBC) will take one chapter a week, nothing too strenuous. The format is simple: I’ll provide a very brief summary and then offer some personal... Read more

Right away, I knew this class would be different. It wasn’t the post I wrote about it yesterday morning. It was that for the first time in eight weeks of after-school religious education, every child was present and accounted for; and the boys were all sitting in the front rows, the girls in the back. You expect the boys and girls to segregate themselves in a class of fourth-graders. But you don’t expect the boys to be sitting in front... Read more

I am preparing to teach a religious education class this afternoon. Once again, I am brought up against how little I know, how much there is to learn about Catholicism. Anyone who thinks Catholicism is for the lobotomized should be required to teach The Lord’s Prayer to fourth graders. One shocking fact about teaching what used to be known as CCD is how little these kids know, how thin is the Catholic culture in which most are brought up in... Read more

One of the four or five happiest moments of my life came at Easter Vigil 2008. My dad was there, the only time he would ever be present at my new church, a proud “Episcopal observer” from his home in Connecticut. Of course Katie was there, along with my brother David and Cesareo, who had inspired me to go Catholic in the first place. But it wasn’t being with loved ones, particularly, or even the whole night that was the... Read more

I came back from retreat Thursday realizing that there is only one vow I have ever taken in my life, or am likely to take, the marriage vow. I woke up this morning to find Margaret of Scotland featured in the Office of Readings. What could a Hungarian mother of six, dead for over nine hundred years, have to teach me about matrimony? Here is the reading the Church offers in honor of Margaret of Scotland: From the pastoral constitution... Read more

There are a few throwaway episodes in the two-year history of “Joan of Arcadia,” the TV series about a latter-day Joan of Arc that had a short, lamented two-year run (2003–2005). One of these is “Drive, He Said,” season 1, episode 10. The following week’s tale, “The Uncertainty Principle,” is anything but a throwaway. “Drive, He Said” has a good trigger and an explosive climax, but it’s little more than melodrama, lacking the meaty exchanges between Joan and God that... Read more

I had a chance to talk today for the first time with a fellow parishioner I’ll call Mitch. I’ve noticed Mitch at daily Mass. He is younger than me by a lot but looks like he could be older. Mitch has gray hair, weathered skin, and the seemly humility of a man in his seventies. Mitch has mileage on his tires. Mitch admitted to me when our conversation was only a few minutes old that life has beat him up... Read more

Two weeks ago today at Confession, on the eve of All Saints, I was asked to meditate on the Beatitudes. I gave them thought and then moved on. Now, after a sleepless night, and following a retreat that seems to have acted like a time bomb, I find I’ve been blindsided by the Beatitudes. How sneaky thou art, Lord Jesus! I described the three-day retreat at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, in a previous post. And I elaborated on... Read more

Three days among the Trappist fathers and brothers of St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, convinced me that monastic life is both less weird and more difficult than I had previously imagined. It was like discovering that monks are not space aliens, but are instead an elite unit of Navy Seals. (The photo is Abbot John O’Connor, whose life spanned the Civil War and World War II, 1864–1945.) I described Spencer and some of my personal experiences on retreat there... Read more