On Sundays this fall, instead of leaving Mass in a rush to go do the Ravens pre-game show, I will instead help teach Sunday school at St. John the Evangelist, our parish in Severna Park. When school starts, I’ll walk my boys to school and volunteer as a classroom assistant and recess monitor, and I’ll be there to pick them up from school, help with homework, coach their sports teams and help with dinner, bath and bedtime.

We need ritual in our lives. Mass is a ritual, which means that through the repetition of prayers, movements, and the changing of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, we are formed, disciplined and consoled.

Whether diocesan sponsored, independent, online or conventional brick-and-mortar, there has been — without doubt — a tsunami of interest in Catholic classical education.

Samuel Johnson, that great coiner of aphorisms, averred that “People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.” In that Johnsonian spirit, here are some reminders about what has been happening in Ukraine, for Senator J.D. Vance and others who persist in certain confusions about the situation and its implications.

Families do not need to be granted a right to educate their children, as the right already belongs to the family.

As our culture continues to make choices contrary to Catholic teaching, Catholic education has become even more important if our children are going to be well formed in the faith and apply it in their daily lives.

I pray that this is a fruitful experience for those who are there, of course. But I have to imagine that an event like this can have a profound impact far beyond the event itself.

Salvation has never been about one’s worthiness, but about one’s willingness.

Sometimes the words we rattle off without thinking are precisely the place to pause and reflect.

The frog could have crossed the road at any time, but it just happened to leap when we were in that particular spot.