It is my road trip home after a summer in a Midwest spiritual boot camp for diocesan seminarians. For 10 weeks, I have studied, pondered, and conversed with others about the spiritual life of a diocesan priest. We focused on the spousal elements of celibacy, the joys and demands of spiritual fatherhood, and the need to be a contemplative in action. The content was rich and life-giving, but I still feel there is something missing...

I pound the last tent stake into the hardpan and toss the rock-turned-hammer down the hill. I pull a knife and a jar of peanut butter from my bag. Digging into the golden spread, I realize that I’m the one being carved—cut and chiseled—by the beauty that surrounds me...

I am sitting on the shore of the Sea of Galilee a month after being ordained a transitional deacon. Beneath my bare feet, under the surface of the blue-green water, lie black stones an arm’s throw from the house of the Rock’s mother-in-law. The grey hills surround the lake like the sides of a baptismal font in the hazy noonday heat...

Our knees make a thud as they hit the carpet floor, fingers sliding on the imaginary strings of our air guitars. Our young voices strain to the Boston classic: “All I want is to have my peace of mii-iiind!!” When the song ends, I shoot a glance at my best buddy in the third grade, Zeke. “I wonder what that means..."

It’s after midnight and near freezing. My buddy, Carter, and I stand still and peer into the canyon. It has sharp shadows. The moon lights up the flat surfaces of rock. The coyotes start yelping and there is a gentle rumble behind us...

I rub my right hand on the sandpaper surface of the rock, then tap twice on a ledge that protrudes from the center. I turn to James, my guide, “I think we found our altar"...

Down we descend, fifty-pound packs shifting with each step. The canyon landscape is as desolate as it is magnificent: the grey desert escarpment giving way to maroon cliffs carved like red-velvet cake—a welcome serving to my starving soul...

I couldn’t find home. The weeds had grown tall over the old ball fields, the manicured diamonds all but blown away...

I can almost see him as a little boy, clothes stained with dirt and sweat from working in the fields with his dad sewing beans and corn. He drops his bicycle on the cobblestone, then scuffles up the steps to the front door of the church...

An emaciated child from the other side of the world stares through the camera lens, over the ocean, across the desert, and from the cardboard to my soul: half-naked, hand extended, hollowed eyes pleading for charity...

I have often heard fathers speak about—or at least try to articulate—the experience of seeing their child’s face for the first time. Some shake their heads in gratitude, while some look down to hide their tears, but almost all will say, in effect, that they never thought they could love anyone so much...

I shoveled a path to the church doors this morning with a wind chill of -16. I felt alive...

The cold wind swirls snowflakes, freshly fallen in their incalculable number and uniqueness. No two the same, though they are billions. And yet, they form a single mass of beauty...

The priesthood is equally entertaining as it is intense. Your people are amazed, for example, to discover you in ordinary places, as if they had discovered a fish swimming in the desert sand...

The pager of the hospital chaplain buzzes on the glass tabletop of his desk, rattling the pennies that lay beside it. He picks it up and squints at the screen. “Code Blue in the surgical waiting room. We need to go.” He stands and throws on his blue sports coat, then tugs on the bottom hem, “Follow me.”

It is two days before Christmas, and the excitement and anticipation of what is to come in the following days is evident in the parish office: lights are strung about the tree in the corner, reflecting their soft light off of the glassy red ornaments; tins of candy line the reception desk; Christmas cards form a pile of their own among the mess of papers on my desk. The phone rings. It is a call from the mortuary down the street....

During my first year of priesthood, I would keep the livestream of St. Francis' tomb pulled-up on my desktop. (you can find it on the webpage of the Basilica in Assisi). The live video of his real grave all the way in Assisi would be full screen whenever I left the office: pixelated vigil candles flickering in the dark. Waiting...

I enter the elevator, push a button, a bell dings and the doors split open. I step out into the smell of hand sanitizer and plastic. The nurse sitting at the desk looks at me. I walk over. "I am the priest here to visit the patient in Room 488"...

The way the cottonwoods sang in the summer breeze, the sound of the dead grass crunching beneath bare feet, the color of the sand as it blew off into the distance. Mr. Allen, now blind, recalls it all with astounding detail...

A white dress spreads open in a twirl, absorbing the blue lights of the DJ table that strobe across the room. My cousin, Macy, spins beneath the hand of her new husband. Behind them, a row of little girls line the dance floor, slack-jawed at the sight...