“Hold fast, daughters, for they cannot take from you the Our Father and the Hail Mary.” — St. Teresa of Avila One of my professors in grad school, Dr. Timothy O’Malley, once commented on people’s state of busyness. “Hey, how are you?” someone will ask. And we often reply, “I’m good, I’ve been really busy.” [...]
Many of us are familiar with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe – the Blessed Virgin Mary, surrounded by light, standing on a crescent moon held up by an angel, clothed in a turquoise mantle that is embellished with stars. But how did this image come to be so revered? To understand, we must [...]
Saint Gemma Galgani and Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton devoted their entire lives to Jesus. They show us that we must run to His mercy and unite ourselves wholly to Him.
“In the middle of our life’s journey, I found myself in a dark wood.” So begins Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy, one of the greatest poems of Europe’s Medieval Period. The long (over 14,000 line) epic is written as a first person account of Dante’s travels through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Heaven (Paradiso). Recently [...]
Recent polls have shown that people generally fall into one of two categories when it comes to Valentine’s Day: either it is viewed as an overrated, Hallmark holiday or it is embraced as one of the most romantic days of the year. I suppose I fall somewhere in the middle. Ultimately, I think that celebrating [...]
As a young girl, I always loved the Sundays when a Baptism took place in the context of the Mass. There were many reasons I found Baptisms captivating; for starters, they punctuated our usual Sunday routine with something out of the ordinary. But more than that, I was drawn up into the joy and the [...]
Every New Year’s Eve, my family attends Mass at St. Joseph or Sacred Heart Church. As a child, I always thought this was another one of my family's traditions - a way of welcoming and ushering in the new year. Only later in life did I realize that this tradition was much more profound and [...]
We ring in the nw year with high hopes, dreams and ambitions. The promise of the unknown, a year untarnished, a clean slate, inspire many people to become better versions of themselves. Perhaps as we begin 2021 and journey towards the season of Lent, God is calling us to make a new vow — one [...]
Sometimes, I am like the Apostle, Thomas, full of doubt. I have been told that Jesus is risen, that He is the Son of God, but I want proof. I want to put my fingers in His hands and in His side. I want to see His resurrected body standing before me. If you’re anything [...]
The summer before 7th grade, my grandfather died. It was the first time I had encountered the death of a loved one. I remember being struck at my grandmother’s composure throughout this time–the weeks leading up to his death, the funeral, and the days after. Of course she was sad and grieving, she had been [...]
Caitlin Sica 