Before Fulton Sheen became a familiar face on television, before the blackboard and the cape, before millions heard him speak about the mysteries of God, there was a boy in Illinois. His life did not begin with a microphone. It began in a family, in the ordinary discipline of Catholic life, and in encounters that…
Envy begins as sorrow at the good that belongs to someone else simply because it is his and not mine. It does not stop at wanting the same kind of good for myself. It registers the other person’s possession as a loss to me. From that sorrow it is a short passage to covetousness, the…
Why Catherine Now? We did not come this far to collect a saint. Catherine is easy to admire at a distance. We have met the girl in her father’s house and the woman who learned to carry an interior cell into the world. We have met the Mantellate, the Bridegroom, the Church she could rebuke…
Election Day is November 3 Tomorrow the line is the Election Day line. In Texas the polls open at seven and close at seven. If you are in line at seven, you still vote.¹ Take your identification. Take the sample ballot you printed and marked on paper. Put the phone away before you enter the…
Texas early voting ends October 30. Friday is the last day of early voting in Texas.¹ If you have not yet cast a ballot and you meant to do it in these two weeks, this is the day. After tonight the line is the Election Day line. Name the place. Take your identification. Go. The…
I loved Catherine before I loved The Dialogue. That is not unusual. You can know a saint’s story and still not know how to hear her when she teaches. She wrote the book near the end of her life, in 1377 and 1378. Suzanne Noffke’s translation is the one I keep. People open it, meet…