There are so many things that people say are lucky. There are horseshoes, four-leaf clovers, and rabbit’s feet, of course. Then there’s walking through a spiderweb, getting hit with bird excrement, and rain on your wedding day.

One morning I went out to start the car and realized it was encased in ice. I tried to open the door to turn on the engine and start defrosting the windows, but I couldn’t get it open.

When we first started celebrating the Chinese New Year, we put a plastic toy tiger on a cake, sliced the cake with a few cousins, and called it a party.

Do you know Pedro Arrupe? He was a Spanish Jesuit, and he served as the 28th Superior General of the Society of Jesus.

The Year of the Pig, which begins today, comes every 12 years, so I’ve lived through a couple of them. But this is the first one I’ve celebrated.

We can encounter God in the awesome majesty of a mountaintop sunrise or a scrunched bouquet of dandelion’s in a child’s fist.

It has been cold this week, though not as cold as it has been in some parts of the country. I couldn’t make outdoor play possible every day, but we did have scissors and colored paper.

There’s something about the Bay Bridge.

Children at Mass aren’t Catholics in training. They are Catholics. They are already members of our community. As one of our favorite priests once said, “Children aren’t the future of the Church. They are the Church.”

We are at this magical age where we can play family board games with a fair amount of success.