The last time I saw him was some 40 years ago at his parents’ home. He was leaving to go into basic training in the army. I gave him a blessing and wished him well.

A friend of mine likes to say, “Ninety percent of being successful in life is just showing up.” I think this is especially true for parents.

As a youth minister, I taught teens about that oft-overlooked third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. How else to prep them for the sacrament of Confirmation, after all?

Catch the spirit! Celebrate the spirit! We’ve got spirit! Schools, businesses, yes, even churches set aside time to fire up people so that they will perform better, respond faster, show more excitement about what they are doing.

“And again. . . . Five, six, seven, eight!” the director yelled.

One of the very first homilies that I was supposed to preach as a newly ordained priest was the Solemnity of the Ascension. I was to preach at the children’s liturgy.

I didn’t take a single photo in 2023. I barely noticed that I had stopped doing something I loved, but it was one of the hardest years I’ve ever had (and I’ve had some doozies).

My cousin decided to become a cop. She was 39 years old, and the cutoff to enter the academy is 40. She smoked like a chimney and drank like a fish before she decided to make this startling career shift.

Down the hill from the town of Alberobello, in the farming village of Corregio rests the land my father was born on. Divided among the sons over the centuries, it no longer was large enough to sustain my dad and uncles.

If you’ve ever been given the task of pruning branches on a vine, you know that it is no easy feat. It is often impossible to tell where the vine ends and the branches begin because they are so intertwined and interconnected.