CatholicAnchor.org Recently, I headed to a morning lecture at a local nursery: “Creating a Biodiverse Garden.” This nursery is huge, with every kind of plant, gift item, basket, and seasonal décor. It reminds me of Bell’s Nursery in Anchorage – elegant and fun to browse, although this being a bigger city, this nursery is like…
CatholicAnchor.org According to the Food Bank of Alaska, one in six children in Anchorage awake each morning to the possibility that they won’t have enough to eat that day. Food insecurity is a problem in Alaska and throughout the U.S. Dave Patterson, a parishioner at St. Patrick Parish in East Anchorage, said he and his…
CatholicAnchor.org The elderly lady was perched high in the stylist’s chair. A large mirror echoed back to her that day’s trim and curl on her thinning white hair. Pretending to be absorbed in a worn copy of a beauty shop gossip magazine, I listened in as, in a booming voice, which probably indicated hearing loss,…
CatholicAnchor.org Franco Caldarola is my father-in-law’s first cousin, part of the tribe that never left Italy. Over the years, the family has stayed close, visiting and entertaining each other on both sides of the Atlantic. So, one day when we were in Rome this year, Franco and his wife Franca picked us up for a…
CatholicAnchor.org I had never heard of Alfred Delp until I read an entry on August 15, the feast of the Assumption of Mary, in one of the Ignation sites I visit daily. Ignationspirituality.com ran a piece about Delp because 75 years before, on that feast day, he was scheduled to profess his final vows in…
CatholicAnchor.org As school bells ring across Southcentral Alaska, some 500 students will have a uniquely Catholic school experience. Enrolled as students in the five Catholic schools operating within the boundaries of the Archdiocese of Anchorage, these students will sit in classrooms displaying a crucifix, pray together, attend school Masses, and be reminded each day of…
Sister Mary Peter Diaz, of the Daughters of Charity, has been appointed director of the food bank run by St. Jude Church on the vast Navajo Nation Reservation in the Southwest U.S.
And we have to seek peace and courage there, a tall order in these days of 24-hour news and constant Twitter access. Maybe that’s the toughest thing: being constantly exposed to the meanness, the politics, while finding our own core.
And if you take umbrage at the concept of selling a parish, take a look at the emptying pews today and reconsider.
When I first visited her home, I didn’t know if the cemetery was calming or eerie. Over the years, I’ve come down solidly on the peaceful aspect of life by a cemetery.