sing, blessed women

I have memories of my grandma embarrassing me in church when I was a little girl.  She would sing really loud and off-key.  I couldn’t hear the choir or the piano; I just heard my grandma blurting out hymns like she didn’t care what others thought.  It didn’t make sense to me.  Being my bold [...]

an economy of love

When I was 20 I studied abroad in South Africa. When I came home, I was a bit of a mess. I was angry about the drastic economic inequality that I encountered in Southern Africa during my six months away.  Something felt horribly wrong about how people could live in a secure mansion while the people [...]

1, 2, 3: eyes on me!

Guest blogger: Steven Cottam One of my many duties as a religion teacher involves getting the students ready for our monthly school Masses. Despite our preparations together, predictably, some of the younger kids always get anxious. Recently, I was in a pew during Mass in front of a group of first and second graders when [...]

holy leftovers

Happy Halloween!! It’s the start of a triduum of sorts; three days of praising God for our mortality and the communion of saints. In the video above, the wise young women on the streets of New York name a Truth that I will reflect on for three days. On November 2 we celebrate the leftovers! [...]

Dear Aemiliana, Dear Sarah

Note: Mother Aemiliana Dirr founded the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in 1849.  After difficulties fulfilling their mission, she and some other sisters left the order in 1860 and lived out the rest of their lives as lay women.  I have written Mother Aemiliana a letter. July 28, 2011 Dear Aemiliana, My heart is so [...]

Poems For Corpus Christi

My Daily Bread   Will I grow old alone, a pitied spinster, the dried-up nun?   Can we grow young, Like the seaside, when your first Kiss taught me justice?   Elopement was never much of an option. A slow steady courtship has made me yours a thousand times.   My wine-soaked heart My lungs [...]

freely united lenten grumbling

In those days, in their thirst for water, the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die here of thirst with our children and our livestock?” So Moses cried out to the LORD, “What shall I do with this people? a little more [...]

Sorry, I Didn’t Recognize You (part two)

Guest blogger, Amy Nee, part two of two (here’s part one) I caught that train and took it to Cermak-Chinatown. The Congress on Urban Ministry had converged on the Hyatt at McCormick Place (a hotel and convention center the size of a neighborhood) and was hosting free “Words and Worship” services in the evenings. That [...]

instruments of peace

At the high school where I work we begin we begin every day with prayer. On Fridays the entire school says the Peace Prayer of St. Francis. The words weren’t written by St. Francis. The Peace Prayer of St. Francis was written in the 1900s and became popular during World War II. The words remain [...]

preparing, minus materialism

Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into. So too, you also must be [...]