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Farewells can be hard. When we love someone who is going away, there’s always a sadness, and a particularly heart-wrenching one when that loved one is going away in death.

Who else’s kids fly off the bus or hurdle into the car after school and start going off like raging maniacs? 

“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Recently, while listening to Catholic Community Radio, a prayer was addressed to Our Lady of Prompt Succor to spare us during this hurricane season. Who is Our Lady of Prompt Succor and why do we pray to her?

Where can all of us believers come together beyond the divisions created by history, dogma, denomination and religion? Where is there a place all people of sincere heart can find common ground and worship together?

As I was trying to think of a topic to write about on Saturday, May 21, I saw a column in The Advocate entitled “Number of Buddhist chaplains on the rise in U.S.” 

We lost a good soul on April 10. Mr. Vincent Miranda was a community leader and an active member of the Baton Rouge community.  

I miss being able to receive the Blood of Christ at Mass.  Am I missing out on any graces?

A friend of mine, somewhat cynical about the church, recently remarked: “What the institutional church today is trying to do is to put its best face on the fact that it’s dying. Basically, it’s trying to manage a death.”

We break bread around our church parish altars to unite ourselves to Jesus and each other.  We become his body, his church.  Through our Eucharist we renew our hope and strengthen our faith.  The eucharistic community is our home.  

Many Catholics consider May as “Mary’s Month.”  Why is that?

It’s hard for a child to have to go to bed in the middle of an evening when the rest of the family is still celebrating. Nobody wants to go to bed while everyone else is still up. No one wants to miss out on life.

I, not long ago, had a milestone birthday and it has made me look back at certain things. Y’all, I’m not by any definition old unless you ask my kids: “Well you do have a lot more white hairs and you don’t play basketball as much.”  

 With murders increasing in America and military slaughter of civilians in Ukraine, this year’s Good Friday services called us to faith and hope in a world filled with cruelty, killing and destruction.

At the Good Friday services we venerated the cross.  Isn’t that idol worship?

When did we lose it? When did we lose that deeply-engrained, forever-sanctioned sense that however much we might disagree with each other or even dislike each other, we still need to accord each other basic courtesy, respect and politeness?

As a prior classroom teacher, I occasionally have a nightmare where I am trying to rein in a class that will not comply no matter my efforts.

“We hope in the world to come.”  

As Jesus was dying on the cross, he cried out in a loud voice, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  Was Jesus despondent and despairing? 

Growing up, I do not ever recall having a conversation with my family members or friends about discerning a vocation to the priesthood or consecrated religious life.