Shouldering Responsibility

The pallium is an ancient liturgical vestment worn only by the pope and a very few other high-level church officials upon whom the pope bestows it as a symbol of the jurisdiction delegated to them. In honor of Saints Peter and Paul, today is the day of

Keeping Vigilant

Years ago a cartoon appeared in which a monk is standing on a golf course flying a kite. In the distance, two astonished golfers are staring up at the kite, on which is written

Do You Really Need All Your Closet Baggage?

Undated photograph of Saint Sharbel Makhlūf

Saint Sharbel Makhlūf, the Hermit of Lebanon (1828-1898), whose birth name was Youssef Antoun Makhlūf, dedicated himself to imitating Christ at an early age. He entered the Maronite monastery of St. Maro, took the name Charbel, after a Christian martyr in Antioch from the 2nd century, and was eventually granted permission to live as a hermit. Many sought his counsel over the years, but it wasn’t until his body was discovered incorrupt in 1965 – long after his death in 1898 – that hundreds of miracles were attributed to him, including a well-documented healing from paralysis in 1993 which was

Journey Inward To The Center Of Your Heart

Saint Romuald (c. 951-1027) was a man on a mission. As a young man, having been compelled to witness Sergius his father duel with a relative in an argument over property in which he killed his adversary, he entered a Benedictine monastery at Classe, Italy to do 40 days penance for him – to atone for the murder his father committed – which resulted in his own vocation to religion as a Benedictine monk. His father, who also later became a monk, contemplated leaving his monastic order, but was dissuaded by Romauld. Throughout his monastic life, Romauld continuously sought simplicity, which motivated him for 30 years to

Beans So Bad Even My Dog Won’t Eat ‘Em

Dogs’ll eat anything.

Well, almost anything.

Yeah, they were are that bad!

You know beans’ve gotta’ be REALLY bad when even a 4-day hungry dawg won’t eat ’em!

Or, any food.

You KNOW food is genuinely bad when even a hungry dog won’t eat it!

It’s summertime, and truth be told, folks and critters don’t do much eating.

‘Cept for bears. Bears chow down during summer. They eat up, meat up, and sleep it all off over winter.

But this was the case with