Archive

Some time ago I was in a confessional booth whenThere was a moment I never experienced before orSince. It was a lovely terrible haunting moment andI continue to think...

I had a teacher in middle school named Mister Bossy. Yes, we made fun of his name. He was a stern gruff tart-tongued blunt brisk unamused teacher. He was...

Once again a child asks me suddenly What is a poem?,And once again I find myself riffing freely and happilyWithout the slightest scholarly expertise or knowledge;But I am entranced...

At a funeral Mass today I happened to be sitting next to an older lady who, when the time came for us to say “Lord, I am not worthy...

In a meeting the other day someone says to me, So, you grew up in New York, did you get to Jersey much?, and I started to laugh, which...

My sister entered a monastery slowly, over the course of some years, and she says this is not unusual, that most of the people she knows who have entered...

By chance I was in New York City seven months after September 11, and I saw a moment that I still turn over and over in my mind like...

Among my first memories in this wondrous world were brittle palm fronds folded reverently behind the four crucifixes in our childhood home. As a small child, I assumed they...

I am that rare soul who can remember his First Confession, at age eight, very nearly word-for-word—I think because I was terrified, and hyper-alert, and intent on remembering everything...

As I am sitting at the stoplight under the maple and oak and cedar treesI see three tiny kids skiffling and shuffling and skittering and scufflingIn the leaves—bigleaf maples,...

Another great thing about being an altar boy was getting to the church early, before everyone except the ostentatiously devotional railbirds who actually competed to see who could be...

I will start out politely, with the traditional As-salaam-u alaykum, peace be to you, and I will even use the title you have given yourself, and I will try...

If you have to sneeze on the altar do so quietly and turn Your head away from the Holy Sacrament. Please carry A handkerchief in the pocket of your...

In our family, we went to Mass every blessed Sunday of the year, and here and there you would have to go to Mass during the week because of...

You know what I remember first about my daughter being born? Weirdly, not the miracle of it, or the bruised tender extraordinary Courage of my wife, or the eerie...