I gas up my truck on weekends. That’s because I carry a Toot-N-Totum card that awards ten cents off a gallon on Sundays, which is twice the weekday discount. Filling up on the Lord’s Day also re-enforces the fact that truck stops are holy places, at least according to St. Catherine of Siena...

“It’s a rental, but that don’t matter. Kate likes the location and I’m good at fixing things up.” His name is Josh, but I call him Joe. He works construction, takes pride in pulling his weight and goes the extra mile for his friends...

A Reflection on Being Alone at Christmas

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...

The jag in the road once had a name: Claremont. A few houses, a gas station, a wood-frame church. Thirty miles west, a once-upon-time Northfield boasted a high school, storefronts and a cotton gin. Today, straight-line winds yell cheers across the rotted floor of the Northfield gym. At Claremont, bull snakes coil like rubber hoses in the service bay of the old Texaco...

Winter came on fast this year, flattening electric poles and toppling cell phone towers. I was on retreat in a remote cabin with no heat or electricity...

A recent issue of the Diocesan Historical Society featured an article about a remarkable priest name Fr. Ladislau Wolko. To my surprise, we once served in the same small town, at a parish called Sacred Heart. Fr. Wolko came from Poland and was ordained shortly after WWII. Prior to his ordination, Fr. Wolko endured five years of torture in a Nazi concentration camp...

Emulating men with backs that bend has been an indispensable part of my journey. As a priest, however, it is easy to hide behind a public persona of self-denial. The challenge, as always, lies within one’s private life. This is why I pray at night...

It was a Friday night rehearsal. The wedding coordinator lined up the bridal party: “Slick, you and Amanda follow Josh and Jean...

The view out the window never varies: wheat fields and football fields; warehouses and apartment houses; truck terminals and transmission lines. Who wants to live in a place like this? Well, I do!

Moses crouched low, loosened a strap and removed the sandal. The sand, warmed by sacred fire, seared his sole like embers fallen from an altar...

The older I become, the more penance I crave. I never expected this evolution in my spiritual maturation...

I’m in my truck when I get a call from my great-nephew, Gus. He tells me he landed a job with a harvest crew. His voice sounds scuffed, like a work boot kicking a tire. 

“You are in my prayers.” I say this all the time. Most the time I mean it and most of the time I hold myself to it. Truth be told, it’s hard to hold back the intentions logged in my memory...

Sometimes people kneel to pray. Sometimes people kneel to play: a girl on a sidewalk with a piece of chalk; a boy on a creek bank skipping a stone. Sometimes people kneel to work...

I have never been to Rome, but I’ve been to the Rockies. No offence, Michelangelo, but no Renaissance glory can compare to the beauty of Creation. I suppose this is why I love the story of the Lord’s Transfiguration atop Mt. Tabor.

I have a horse named Buddy. He is gentle and eager to please. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a lot of self-confidence. He lets other horses push him around and, sometimes, they beat him up pretty bad...

As a priest, when I prepare engaged couples for marriage, my mind returns to my sister’s wedding over sixty years ago....

Street lamps circled the city blocks like lights on a Christmas tree. The snow, silent and soft, swirled amid steeples and tenements. It was around 3 AM...

In Genesis, Eve was created in the garden. But Adam was created in the wild, before the garden took shape. Formed from dust in the outback, his soul—and hence the soul of every man—would bear the imprint for that primitive place where God molded mud into muscle...