Seasons of Grace

ShareReverend Sister Marianne Matron of the Bishop Home, Kalaupapa To see the infinite pity of this place, The mangled limb, the devastated face, The innocent sufferers smiling at the rod, A fool were tempted to deny his God. He sees, and shrinks; but if he look again, Lo, beauty springing from the breast of pain!— [...]

ShareHer son was a wild one.  She had tried to impart solid virtues and a lively faith—but her atheist husband quashed that with his brusque way and bad example. So when her eldest son reached his teens, he broke away—rejecting Christianity for an occult religion, and preferring an easy life of casual relationships and carefree [...]

ShareDirty books, quickly and carelessly written—almost 200 of them. That’s the legacy of Nicolas-Edme Restif de la Bretonne, prolific French author whose works showcased the sordid aspects of French life and society in the 18th century.  Restif’s writings included a plan for legalizing and regulating prostitution, as well as a vast array of novels, plays, and [...]

ShareThose of you who, like me, spent your aimless youth slathered in Coppertone and languishing on a hot beach in a vain attempt to get a suntan will appreciate this story. St. Lawrence, one of seven deacons who served under Pope Sixtus II, died on this date in 258 A.D.  According to legend, he was [...]

ShareEarlier this week, I told the story of how Archbishop Pietro Sambi, papal nuncio to the U.S., had so generously welcomed Guest House to the Vatican Embassy in 2006.  Guest House, the treatment center for Catholic clergy and religious, was celebrating the 50th anniversary of its founding; and the nuncio’s enthusiastic support for our mission [...]