No, my father wasn’t famous, but he was my dad. He passed away in 2003. And just like Kelly Conway said of her father, my siblings and I would say, “We knew he would have to leave us someday, but that day came too soon.” 

As the first blossoms of spring transition into the vibrant greens of early summer, may we be open to the opportunities that lie ahead, recognizing that each of us can contribute to our family, our community, and our world in different ways at different moments.

You have to live in a cave not to know a family or three who have lost a loved one to the opioid epidemic,  but for me, the violence infesting and dragging down Baltimore has never hit closer.

During our visit to my in-laws on Maryland’s Eastern Shore last weekend, I took our boys on a trip to the store. As we were driving, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye and my younger son yelled, “STOP!”

“The most important goal of a single Catholic man is to get his soul to heaven,” Zuerlein says, “but the most important goal of a married Catholic man expands to getting not only his own soul to heaven, but also those of his wife and children. It’s almost as if, as a result of the love that you share, you have one soul as a family.”

On any given day, we may not remember all the things that Jesus said and did. But we do know that God came to be with us. That’s what really matters.

Half-measures. Let’s be done with them, especially in this season when we continue to celebrate the full outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon his church.

This wasn’t a mistake. We weren’t attending Mass in some random parish that just happened to fit our travel schedule. We were exactly where we were supposed to be.

I think we need parishes to start using their ingenuity to get people’s attention.

The other day our younger son came to me with an idea. “What if we filled a jar with pieces of paper with fun things to do this summer? We could pick one every day and then go do it!”