Catholic Review
Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore
By
Filed Under: Blog, Open Window
Every day during Lent we pull a slip of paper out of our prayer basket and read the name of the person or people listed there.We’ve prayed for cousins and grandparents, deceased family members and living friends. We share stories about the people we’re praying for, and—when I think of
By
Filed Under: Blog, Fertile Soil
It was a typical Saturday in late January. My best friend was helping me install a laminate floor in our living room. We took a break to have lunch together, and chitchatted for a bit before he left. Four days later, I received a series of frantic text messages and
By
Filed Under: Blog, Unconditional
Bedtime at the Barberrys is nothing short of a production. There are bathtime adventures, pajama races, and our own version of “circle time” where we discuss the events of the day and our dreams for tomorrow. This is followed by stories, including: perennial favorites like “Goodnight, Goodnight Construction
By
Filed Under: Blog, Unconditional
My grandmother, Marion Thuma Snyder Johnston, told me this story many years ago and said that she wanted to write it someday. She passed away peacefully on March 30, 2017. She didn’t get a chance to put it into writing, so I’m going to make sure that her
By
Filed Under: Blog, Unconditional
I live in a small city outside of Baltimore called Aberdeen. It’s a modest town, born of the canning industry and railroad, where most people work hard to live peaceful lives in little neighborhoods. Unfortunately, just under two hundred of our neighbors are unable to afford homes for a variety
By
Filed Under: Blog, Open Window
This Lenten season, as we fast and serve and pray, I hope we can try to find moments just to be with God.
By
Filed Under: Blog, Dust and Dewfall
Last Sunday, the “midway point” of Lent, we heard the beautiful, amazing account from the Gospel of John of the “man born blind” (John 9:1-41.) In it we see a beautiful progression of faith, not so much unlike the one of the Samaritan woman who earlier proclaimed Christ to her
By
Filed Under: Blog, Open Window
If ever there were an aunt who deserves to be celebrated, it’s Aunt Shai. She gives her nieces and nephews her undivided attention, plays with them for hours, reads to them, and teaches them how to make up stories with their toys.So even though it wasn’t clear that she wanted
By
Filed Under: Blog, Open Window
I’ve never paid much attention to what greeters do before Mass. I always smile at them and say hello, maybe compliment a scarf or comment on the weather. Still, I hadn’t really considered it a significant job.At our parish’s Scout Mass this week, though, Daniel was a greeter, and he
By
Filed Under: Blog, News, The Space Between
Other than the BBC Dad story (which makes me laugh to the point of tears pretty much every time I watch it), my favorite story of the week is of the #bipartisanroadtrip – a two-day drive undertaken by Texas Congressmen Will Hurd (a Republican) and Beto O’Rourke (a Democrat). The two men, who don’t
By
Filed Under: Blog, News, Open Window
When I was watching the footage of the BBC interview with Professor Robert Kelly, and his daughter came dancing into the room—followed by her baby brother in a walker—I couldn’t help but laugh. But I wasn’t laughing at his predicament, or his wife’s, as she swoops in to scoop up
By
Filed Under: Blog, The Space Between
The other day I wrote a piece on happiness, on how transient and subjective it is, and how it therefore makes a poor measure for determining the worth of a thing. (In that case, I was mostly referring to the ‘thing’ of reproductive technologies – efforts that aim to
en 
Spanish