CatholicAnchor.org Nothing like a good storm – or maybe an earthquake – to focus your attention. I was heading for the shower on a Monday morning when a huge gust of wind battered the house. Then all went dark, and those consoling, authoritative voices of National Public Radio were silenced. Rats! I hadn’t made my…
CatholicAnchor.org Holy Spirit Center, located in the foothills of the Chugach Mountains on 22 acres, overlooks a sweeping vista of the Anchorage bowl. One of the Archdiocese of Anchorage’s gems is now looking back on nearly 50 years of ministering to the spiritual needs of Alaskans. Today, despite financial challenges over the years, Center director…
CatholicAnchor.org One evening, returning from my walk, I detoured on to a lot where a new home is under construction, but not yet sold. The house is on my block, and it’s one of the last lots to be filled in my neighborhood. I was curious, a nosy neighbor. So I veered off the sidewalk…
CatholicAnchor.org “In the worst hour of the worst season of the worst year of a whole people…” Those haunting words are the first two lines of a poem called “Quarantine” by Eavan Boland. Boland, an Irish poet and professor, died in her native Dublin at the end of April. She was 75. Twenty years ago,…
CatholicAnchor.org On April Fool’s Day, a friend discovered empty toilet paper rolls in her bathrooms, the cardboard tubes covered with the words “Ha, Ha, Ha.” She searched for the precious paper while trying to maintain a sense of humor. After all, little kids held hostage to a virus need some fun. As I write this,…
CatholicAnchor.org One of the best-known photos of Father Scott Garrett shows the priest baptizing a baby at a dining room table. Sunlight from a nearby window illuminates only three people: the priest and a young mother holding a tiny baby over a large bowl of water. A collection of coffee mugs hangs on the wall…
CatholicAnchor.org You might call it a memorial card, maybe a prayer card. I call it a holy card. It’s a picture of a little saint, Jakelin Caal Maquin, who was seven years old when she died after migrating to the U.S. from Guatemala. On the back of the picture is a prayer for children in…
CatholicAnchor.org Here’s a Lenten question: what is simplicity? At first glance, embracing simplicity seems rather – well, simple. Decluttering is trending sharply in our culture. Perhaps as a reaction to the enormous amount of stuff we accumulate, books focusing on getting rid of junk are proliferating. The best-selling Japanese writer Marie Kondo explains how to…
CatholicAnchor.org I don’t love driving on dark rural roads. But several years ago, when I worked for Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, I found myself chauffeuring guest speakers around one-traffic-light hamlets as we campaigned to convince citizens to support repeal of our death penalty. I remember, especially the evening Sister Helen Prejean was…
CatholicAnchor.org As we enter 2020, most of us are dreading the political rancor and divisiveness that grip our nation. We’re fatigued, angry, frustrated. To make matters worse, the American church is in the grip of division as well. Any trip to Catholic social media sites brings criticisms of Pope Francis and other Catholic figures that…