On a Sunday two years ago, I began RCIA classes to be received into the Catholic Church. The class met at 10:30 and I woke up planning to attend Mass at 9:30. Then I had a second thought: Give the Episcopal Church one more chance. Try one last taste test before buying that lifetime supply of Maxwell House. I was aware of two Episcopal parishes in our town, and I already knew that I didn’t want any part of one... Read more

I woke before 3 a.m. today thinking about how my father hated the Yankees. In the dream I woke up from, Dad was Tweeting with A-Rod about hitting streaks. The remarkable thing about Dad was, he could hate the Yankees but still admire A-Rod when he was going well. Me, I never found a place in my heart for “Mr. April,” who never seems to go well in October. That’s the difference between Dad and me, a difference I’d like... Read more

I know very little about St. Thérèse. I should hardly be writing about her at all. But she would understand. And she is one of the reasons YIM Catholic. How could you not adore this picture of her dressed as Joan of Arc for a play staged at her Carmelite convent? To me, it’s a sort of Holy two-fer, since I am a big fan of Joan too. How could you not admire someone whose path to God was “The... Read more

Did I tell you JPII was Bono? Yes, I did. (Though BXVI, aka Mozart, is still “my pope.”) Thanks to The Deacon’s Bench for this great pic. Read more

One of the gratifying things about this blog is hearing from Catholics around the world about their mostly positive experience of the Faith. Nothing has touched me more than the many comments from Catholic women and one Catholic man in response to my question about the happiness of Catholic women. The female respondents include a woman from India who is happy with her faith but sometimes unhappy with the Church hierarchy. The one man was Ferde, natch. Let me add... Read more

Father Barnes recently said, quoting George Weigel, I think, that the wonderful thing about Catholicism is, it’s messy. The thought hit me again yesterday afternoon as I attended Mass at St. Anthony’s Shrine in Boston with Lorenzo and other friends from Communion and Liberation (CL). It was back in force this morning as I pondered a reading for the Feast of St. Matthew. I don’t know what Weigel means by messy, but this is what I mean. How could these... Read more

I dropped out of college at nineteen to follow Cesareo. At thirty-three I married my polar opposite, dumbfounding my friends. Four years later, I launched a business using a model I made up myself. Ten years later, I started another business, requiring skills I didn’t have. I am no stranger to adventure, but none of these adventures matches my conversion to Catholicism. Each previous adventure represented a sharp discontinuity in my life, a quantum shift. Each had a different motivation,... Read more

It’s only Friday morning, fifteen hours before airtime, but already I miss “Joan of Arcadia.” It takes courage to be a priest, as I wrote on Wednesday, but it takes a special kind of courage to live in a household with three socially active women (a wife and two daughters) and repeatedly insist on staying home Friday evenings to weep openly over a TV melodrama about a high-school girl who talks to God. Whatever I know about being martyred for... Read more

I introduced Katie to Frank and Carrie Kwiatkowski at Mass last Sunday and said, “Honey, get a good look. That’s what I want us to be 25 years from now.” She understood. Katie and I celebrate our 25th anniversary this fall, and when we hit our 50th (GW), I’ll be Frank’s age. I first met Frank at Saturday morning men’s group, about the time my dad was dying of melanoma. Frank and Dad were the same age, and this, plus... Read more

We all admire courage. We all admire heroes. What’s a hero? A man who gives his life for his fellow, right? A fireman who rushes into the World Trade Center to save a life but lose his own. A soldier who walks toward enemy fire to pull his buddy behind the lines. A pilot who bails out in the Hudson River, keeping his cool and thereby saving lives. But people, let’s face it: These are moments of heroism, acts of... Read more