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...

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"...