In 1935, when my brother and two sisters and I were young children, we went to a parsish run by Dominican priests in Somerset, Ohio. Our pastor, Father Robert Kircher, loved to gather the children together for solemn church processions to celebrate special feast days.
There came a time in my life when I was going through a spiritual renewal and examining how I could grow closer to God. I decided to purify my house by getting rid of anything I considered to be evil. We have a big house with thirteen rooms, six of them bedrooms for…
Madonna (Richter) Silvernagel had suffered a parent’s worse fear, not once, but twice—the death of two beloved baby daughters. She could not have known that she herself would die young, but her legacy lives on in a powerful way. Her daughters, now married with families of their own, give thanks that their mother did…
Terry Schiavo was diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state but her parents fought from 1998 to 2005 to keep her alive. Michael Schiavo, her husband, had gotten on with a new life with another woman and children. He won in court to have her feeding tube removed so Terry died from…
More than a century ago a proud university student boarded a train in France and sat next to an older man who seemed to be a peasant of comfortable means. The brash student noticed that the older gentleman was slipping beads through his fingers. He was praying the rosary. …
It was World War II when Eldon Dahl, a school mate of my husband’s and a pilot in the United States Air Force was shot down over Italy. He was returning from a bombing raid near Foggia, Italy on August 25, 1943. Parachuting from his flaming B-17 bomber, which was riddled with bullets…
When my twelve-year-old son, Donnie became involved with drugs and alcohol, as far as I could tell, he was still the same obedient and kindhearted son he had always been. We had been close during his childhood but I failed to recognize the changes he was going through.
St. Francis heard God’s call from a crucifix and the faithful Russian grandmothers heard God’s call from a cell phone. When St. Francis, knelt before the crucifix in the broken down church of San Damiano in the Italian town of Assisi, it was a moment that changed the world. “Francis, go rebuild my…
The latest craze being sold in stores to kids and teens across the country has all the makings of a successful fad—inexpensive, cute, and collectible. But parents beware: the charm-sized voodoo dolls, also known as string dolls, are no child’s play.
Do you have more things to do than time to do them? Really? No, not really. Would God give you more to do than time to do it? Of course not. So if you feel that you can’t get it all done, then maybe it’s not all yours to do. Or, you aren’t organizing yourself….
Although Shari Rigby was a seasoned actress, she was unprepared for the October Baby movie script. The movie is a story about Hannah, a college freshman who learns she was adopted and born premature as a result of an attempted abortion. She is shattered and embarks on a journey to find her birth mother. The…
I came across an amazing marriage recovery story when I was working on the Amazing Grace for Married Couples book. A priest friend who heard of the title I was working on told me, “Oh, do I have a story for you!” He wasn’t kidding! Alcoholism, drugs, adultery, and then just when all seemed lost,…