In ‘The Hidden Life of Trees,’ forests are family, too Trees are, as it turns out, social and more than a little like us. Trees have friends. Trees talk to each other and send over resources when a neighbor is in need. Trees nurture their children. Trees sound the alarm about environmental threats. Trees grow […]
Not all gifts are easily defined As St. Paul tells the Colossians: “We are called to be grateful for everything.” As a child, my siblings and I eagerly anticipated Christmas. Poring through the Sears catalogue, we wrote our letters to Santa and composed our lists to give to him when we sat on his lap […]
Catholics around the country bring ‘Laudato Si’’ to life To heed the call to care for our common home, we must work together. Many family and church friends would sacrifice a limb, as they say, for the well-being of their children or grandchildren. They are also prepared to give the shirts off their backs to […]
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Was the first Thanksgiving Catholic? From the very beginning, Thanksgiving was infused with a Eucharistic worldview. Few things in American life strike a deeper chord than Thanksgiving. A table covered with food. The late autumnal light slanting through bare trees. And motion. The whole country responds to the homing signal to unite with relatives and […]
Oscar Wilde’s surprising spirituality Suffering and injustice led Oscar Wilde to campaign for others. My first encounter with Oscar Wilde was probably much the same as yours: I was assigned The Importance of Being Earnest in high school English class. I read about half of it, then filled in the gaps with the 2002 film adaptation. I […]
3 parenting tips from St. Joseph The Year of St. Joseph inspires a parent to look closely at the earthly father of Jesus. It might sound a bit cliché to say that St. Joseph is one of my favorite saints. For a long time, it honestly kind of was. When asked that oft-repeated Catholic icebreaker […]
The Eucharist should be political While the Eucharist should not be a partisan weapon, we must ask: What is the relationship between it and our politics? Earlier this year, a lot of (sometimes misleading) controversy swirled around the question of abortion, Catholic politicians, and communion. This isn’t a new question. There was plenty of discussion […]
Hurricane Ida shows the unequal impact of climate change Ida offers poignant lessons as climate change makes a landfall. The damage Hurricane Ida inflicted on Louisiana was terrible—second only to Katrina 16 years to the day before Ida—but pretty much what forecasters expected. It was after Ida lumbered north through the Mid-Atlantic states that it […]
John Paul II’s funeral Mass was a beacon of unity The solemn funeral Mass of St. Pope John Paul II was a lesson in the high art of worship—and a glimpse of unifying liturgical prayer. It’s been more than a decade and a half since Catholics around the world converged on St. Peter’s Square in […]