Visiting my parents’ grave on Christmas Eve, I realized something about the gravestone inscription that hadn’t hit me until then. When my father chose the epitaphs for my mother and himself, he didn’t use occupations or accomplishments to help visitors understand whose bodies were buried beneath the stone. He selected the titles most important to […]

When people mention “Baltimore Catechism” it’s usually in some derogatory way—either as “old-school” and naïve or simplistic and irrelevant. But one of the core questions in that catechism asks “Why did God make me?” The answer goes, “God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to […]

As children we tend to love teachers who are nice, offer lessons we can easily understand, and grade on a generous curve. By the time we’re adults and we’ve learned a bit more of what life has to teach us, we often credit those teachers who demanded more from us and prepared us for the […]

Prophets have been preparing us for Christ’s coming for centuries, as we see in this Sunday’s readings. In our gospel passage (Lk 3:1-6), Luke tells how John the Baptist fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy of a voice crying out in the desert: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every valley shall be filled […]