Living Monstrance

I had the privilege of volunteering as a Minister of Holy Communion in a Boston hospital for several years.  The hospital is a place where many people experience great darkness in life.  It is also a place where the Lord does some of the greatest things.
One day, before making visits, I decided to go to [...]

[Read more →]

The Franciscan community I lived with for a while did not have any money or means of transportation.  So, for long distances, we used different ways of getting around.  One of them was hitchhiking.
That might sound risky at first, but when you are serving the Lord, He provides.  We saw only great goodness and generosity [...]

[Read more →]

My mother was in the hospital for nine days.  When we finally brought her home, the first thing she did was … sleep.  Yes, sleep.  You see, one thing I’ve learned about hospitals is that no one - no one - gets rest in a hospital.  The doctors are working long hours.  The nurses and [...]

[Read more →]

I am living at my parents’ house right now.  The neighborhood is pretty good, a lot of families.  I guess you would call it middle-class, or working class.  But there is something that stands out - sort of.  The next-door neighbor has an early 80’s Buick Regal that has been planted in the same spot [...]

[Read more →]

On the go.  This seems to be the motto these days for me.  It seems like I’m running here, running there, always on the go to get something done.
But you know, every time I begin to be like that, I find that prayer becomes more difficult, life becomes less satisfying, I am more distracted, everything [...]

[Read more →]

I taught high school mathematics and chemistry for a brief time.  Now, before the school year began, there was an orientation that lasted a few days for new students.  So, this was my real beginning with the students.  “Nice,” I thought.  “We’ll ramp up slowly.”
At that first day, a mother of one of the new [...]

[Read more →]

Recently, my mother told me a story about my brother and me when we were little kids.  He was about 4 and I was about 2, and it was Advent.  She had just put together an artificial Christmas tree.  Remember those things?  Shiny and silver and gaudy?  You assemble it branch by branch.  It’s actually painstaking [...]

[Read more →]

As a Franciscan postulant, I got to tag along with another postulant on a parish mission that the priests and brothers were giving.  We postulants got the easy part - spending the day in the parish school.  Well, torture for some people, but for me a gift.
In one class of seventh-graders, my brother postulant was leading an interactive discussion [...]

[Read more →]

When I played basketball in high school, our team didn’t win much.  In my last year, we won only twice in the twenty games we played.  But there was one thing we were good at.  It’s called “taking the charge.”
What is “taking the charge”?  Well, let’s say that the other team has a very good [...]

[Read more →]