Living Monstrance

One of the joys - yes, joys - for me is to do the yard work around my parents’ house. I’m no landscaping expert, but there’s a good feeling to doing gardening, trimming, mowing, and digging in the warmer months. Maybe it’s being outdoors in nature, maybe it’s the satisfaction of building or [...]

[Read more →]

For a while I had the privilege of teaching mathematics in a small high school in Boston. It was my first time teaching and, needless to say, it was a challenge.
Well anyway, after the first round of testing, the results came in. The results were pretty much what I expected: some very good, [...]

[Read more →]

Several years ago, I got a phone call from a great friend of mine.  We became best friends in college and have kept in touch pretty regularly, even though he lives with his wife in New Jersey and I am in Boston.  Well this night he was filling me in on what had happened to [...]

[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 →]

When I worked as an engineer, my company had things called “stock options”.  What are they?  They are shares of stock in the company that an employee has the free option of buying at a fixed price.  What good are they?  Well, if I have the option of buying shares from the company at 10 dollars each, [...]

[Read more →]

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 5:3)  Jesus tells us something incredible here: we can own the kingdom of heaven!  Not just see it or experience it, but actually own it.  How?  Well, He tells us we only have to be poor in spirit.  Pretty simple.  So [...]

[Read more →]

Did you ever notice that Mary has a long list of different titles in the Church?  There’s Queen of Apostles, Star of the Sea, Our Lady of Victories, Mother of Mercy, and the list seems to go on forever.  And did you notice that she seems to change in appearance, too?  Her shrines depict her [...]

[Read more →]

I lived on a mountain as a postulant with a Franciscan community for a month.  One of the difficult tasks was to get stuff up the mountain.  It was a difficult path, and it took an off-road 4-wheeler to make it all the way.  So, some stuff had to be brought up the old-fashioned way.
One day I had the [...]

[Read more →]

Mark McGwire is one of the greatest home run hitters in baseball history. Me, I played two years of Little League and never put on real cleats in my life. So what do Mark McGwire and I have in common? Let me explain.
One summer I worked as a parking attendant in the parking garage behind [...]

[Read more →]