When our first-born daughter was ready to celebrate her sixth birthday, we promised she could have a party and invite all of the girls in her kindergarten class. From the beginning, I worried about hosting a party for 20 in our small home.

It had been a very difficult day at work, a day filled with anxieties and conflicts and much uncertainty. I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. All I wanted to do was go home, lie on the couch, and watch TV. Maybe I’d pull a blanket up over my head and go to sleep.

Baseball legend Yogi Berra, who died at the age of 90 after a long and storied career, was revered for his wisdom-filled malapropisms as much as his baseball prowess. Among his more memorable observations: “If you don’t know where you’re going, you might wind up someplace else.”

Jermaine was brought up in a devout Catholic family and went to Catholic schools all the way through high school. He knew that killing was wrong. He also knew that violence is not the way to peace.

No one knows the day or hour—of a betrayal, of a diagnosis, of a hurricane, of upheaval that changes everything. We go about our lives, sometimes kidding ourselves that we’re in control, until we’re dramatically reminded that we’re not.

It wasn’t hard for Susan to make a lot of money. She had the education and the skills to get a top-paying job anywhere. She liked the money and the things the money could buy, like a nice apartment, a really cool car, and fun vacations.

I found myself in Southern Italy at the altar of a small church in the farming village of Correggio, concelebrating Mass with an Italian priest who had been pastor there for decades. The women came early to pray and were sitting together to my left with their children.

When I took classes for RCIA, there was another candidate, Mabel—a woman in her late 30s—who could never make it to class on time, sometimes arriving only for the final prayers.

Like the people in Jesus’ time, we have heard the commandment to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength many times. The question is: “What does that mean exactly?”

As the dean of formation of the high school seminary, every summer I joined in rewriting the student handbook based on what we had learned from the previous school year.