In the summer of 2020, our parish, and the world, lost a vessel of unconditional love when Matt died of brain cancer at the age of 55. Matt adored his wife, Katie, and was an incomparable dad to his three kids.

Mr. Cardinale was rehearsing his lines in his mind. His daughter had missed curfew once again, and she’d already been warned. How often had he told her about curfew—rule number one?

The greatest commandment: Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, doesn’t really need a second commandment to follow it. But Jesus offers one about loving your neighbor as yourself. Why?

I met a community organizer at a number of meetings in the neighborhood. I liked her style, so one day I asked her how she had gotten into her profession. She spoke of her idealism in college, but that it was mostly talk and little action. A trip to India radicalized her as she experienced the sheer enormity of the poverty that she found all around her.

I heard a little girl in the grocery store pleading with her mother. “Please, please, please buy me the pink cookies!” she wailed. And then she decided to set the trap. “Will you buy me the pink cookies, or do you hate me?” she asked.

Clock-watching is a miserable pastime, yet sadly people all over the world are in jobs where they often do just that. It really has nothing to do with the job.

I love to dress casually—maybe it was years of wearing a Catholic school uniform. The polyester-blend jumper was too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. I always had to wear something underneath—shorts in the summer so I could be active on the playground and pants in the winter for warmth—so the jumper was bunched up and ill-fitting.

Kelly, a teenage girl on vacation with her parents, was having a horrible time. And her face and her posture let everyone know it. All week long she’d moped by the resort’s pool—alone with her cell phone.

People turn down great business opportunities every day out of fear, suspicion, or lack of vision. Instead of seeing possibilities, they see threats and end up losing out.

My brothers and their wives and I found ourselves in the hills of Tuscany in late October one year, staying in a villa that overlooked rolling row after row of grapevines. The leaves on the vines were autumn gold. Royal purple grapes hung heavy on the vines.