Like Jesus, we don’t have to look for approval, control or safety outside ourselves.

During our visit, we encountered Maryknoll priests, sisters and lay missionaries working as pastoral coordinators, catechists, teachers, healthcare providers and agricultural and clean-water advisors

Our older son traveled to Disney World with his high school band, so we decided to tag along as a family.

The fact that the hosts have become Jesus’ body through the consecration is its own miracle. This possible multiplication of the hosts feels like a miracle on top of a miracle—and it fills me with joy.

Rather than demanding a specific percentage of our income, the church leaves the dollar amount of our charitable giving up to our own good-faith discernment of what we can realistically afford.

Every morning when I check the cages, I am relieved to see Ron is still with us, ready for his breakfast, looking forward to the day. I hope he pulls through and that he’s not in pain.

Every year as the Feast of the Annunciation approaches, I think of how our Blessed Mother received the news that she would be the mother of Jesus.

In March, with Christmas now feeling well-behind us, we nevertheless touch it again, for on the 25th of this month we observe the Solemnity of the Annunciation as recorded in the Gospel of St. Luke.

God leaves the safety and glory of heaven, in a certain sense, and embraces the limitations of our human condition, coming to know in the flesh both the glory and tragedy of our nature without ever having sinned.

Even in the heavenly life of the world to come, we retain our human nature.