May the Lord give you His peace! We often experience a wholesome pride in the heritage from which we come and in which we share in our lives. Such heritage can be ethnic or national or simply pride in the neighborhood and city where we grew from childhood to adulthood. I suppose in many ways, [...]

May the Lord give you His peace! With a blog, I can share a lot about our lives as friars, but with the written word I am limited in sharing the fervor and joy in our lives. This limitation really hit home for me here in Italy. What an incredible privilege I had to be [...]

May the Lord give you His peace! On Sunday, April 20, I went to Ground Zero in New York City and waited for the pope to arrive. I did not have any special pass to get into the prayer service there, but I wanted to be in that place on that morning. Here I was, [...]

On Sunday, at the Mass at Yankee Stadium, Pope Benedict made another appeal for vocations. During his homily, the Successor of Peter said:
“Yesterday, not far from here, I was moved by the joy, the hope and the generous love of Christ which I saw on the faces of the many young people assembled in Dunwoodie. [...]

In case you were not at St. Joseph Seminary in Yonkers, NY today to greet the pope, here is what he said on vocations to the young people gathered there. They are words for all of the Catholic youth of the United States, Canada and the world. Thank you Holy Father!
“Dear young people, finally I [...]

May the Lord give you His peace! The world continues to watch and listen as Pope Benedict XVI continues his apostolic visit in the United States. This morning, in his homily at St. Patrick Cathedral, his holiness said,
“Certainly within the Church’s divinely-willed structure there is a distinction to be made between hierarchical and charismatic gifts [...]

May the Lord give you His peace! Briefly, I saw the pope yesterday afternoon as he exited his pope-mobile and entered the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. I was not expecting to see him, but at the last minute, I was able to go to the shrine with [...]

With Pope Benedict’s arrival in the United States tomorrow, many news programs are reporting on various aspects of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. A number of news commentators are talking about the drop in religious vocations on this continent in the last few decades. We often hear this trend referred to as a “vocation crisis.” Crisis [...]

May the Lord give you His peace!  Today, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, the Church celebrates World Day of Prayer for Vocations.  In 1963, Pope Paul VI designated the Fourth Sunday of Easter (a.k.a. Good Shepherd Sunday) as World Day of Prayer for Vocations.  As followers of Jesus, we are called by name and are [...]

May the Lord give you His peace! School is such a significant part of our lives. I still remember my first day of school as a child. I remember being nervous my first day of high school. I remember the excitement of going off to college. I treasure so many things that I learned in [...]