Columns at the Milwaukee Catholic Herald

The first thing you hear about Assisi from anyone who has been there is how peaceful it is. Even the road sign welcomes you to “Assisi: City of Peace” and everywhere throughout the city you see the motto “Pax et Bonum,” which is Latin for “Peace and All Good.”

There is something so specific and so beautiful about Irish music — I think it has something to do with how inextricably it weaves together both joy and sorrow. Much of what I did in Ireland was to walk around in beautiful places (like the shores of Galway Bay) and listen to the Irish music that had been with me my whole life, in the country that it actually came from. Although it was not unexpected, it was wild and beautiful to experience feeling at home in a country I had never been to before. 

When it comes up in the lectionary at Mass, the priest tends to make jokes about it because the genealogy at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel is very long, very repetitive and very full of confusing names. The most skilled reader in the world could not make names like “Zerubbabel” sound normal. So it may be partly my stubborn streak and my desire to be different, but I have come to love that Gospel passage, and I have found it to be a source of deep inspiration.

Everyone has seen a thousand pictures of St. Peter’s Basilica. But there are no pictures of the way that St. Peter’s Square feels at night. The rush of the fountains, the rounded stones to lean against, the wheeling of the birds, the quiet and solemn witness of the obelisk, the glow of our home church and its welcoming arms, the chattering of tourists in every language because “in you all find a home.”

At a Healing the Whole Person conference about five years ago, I finally learned experientially the meaning of a word I had known abstractly all my life. 

There’s a moment that happens in people’s stories. You hear the moment in a lot of people who have been through things like the Healing the Whole Person Retreat. It’s not necessarily in everyone’s story, but I hear it frequently and in every story that has it, it’s always a powerful moment. It’s the moment when a person shows someone the part of themselves that they are the most afraid of and they discover that they are no less loved than they were before.

Even in mid-November, we are already several weeks into the cultural trappings of Christmas. The moment Halloween is over, TV ads and store displays switch to Christmas; Christmas music on the radio will follow soon and, by the time Thanksgiving is over, the world around us will be in full Christmas swing. For those of us living by a liturgical calendar and seeking to prepare our hearts to celebrate the birth of Jesus, being surrounded by Christmas celebrations before Advent even begins can be frustrating. Advent is a liturgical season that is very easily lost in the shuffle of overcrowded schedules and extra-large to-do lists.

Community is a profound and life-changing thing. Made in the image and likeness of the Trinitarian God, human beings are built for relationships. Studies agree that loneliness and the lack of substantial friendship in America is on the rise and problematic for both physical and mental health.

A casual reading of the available data on Catholics leaving the Church is alarming to any Catholic, but particularly to those raising children in the faith. While it would be rash to claim any single method by which children staying in the Church is guaranteed, as part of the 7 percent of millennials raised in the Church who are still actively practicing their faith, I have been introduced to a method of childhood faith formation that offers a new hope.

There is a YouTube channel I love called Yes Theory. Their idea is that real life happens outside your comfort zone, and by seeking discomfort and saying yes to new experiences you can make deep connections, engage with the world and live fully alive.