Fathers
Not everyone has a father growing up; I didn't. And there are a host of other reasons many of us may not feel particularly close to our dads. But none of us ever stops needing one. I think the depth ...
The end of marriage
When I was a kid, there was a little rhyme everybody chanted to tease whoever they thought was experiencing a childhood crush. It went like this: (Boy's Name) and (Girl's Name), sitting in a ...
A winter wonderland
We missed the Blizzard of '78 by a year. But when people here in Louisiana ask us if we miss the snow, we don't hesitate to tell them that we've had our fill and hope we never see the white ...
Holding onto hope
Waking up in New Orleans on New Year's Day was a lot like driving home from work after the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. Shocking, disorienting, and very sad. The evil of that manmade tragedy, ...
Feeling like Christmas
With highs in the 60s and 70s (and lows staying above 40), it doesn't exactly "feel" like Christmas in southern Louisiana, at least not for anybody who was raised well north of the Mason-Dixon Line. ...
Our Lady of Deliverance
Because St. Louis Cathedral sits on the city's main square in the French Quarter, most of the tourists who come to New Orleans take a moment to peek inside. That curiosity coupled with the cathedral's ...
Always building, always being built
There aren't many feasts on the Church's liturgical calendar that highlight a place rather than a person. In fact, there are only three, and all of them are linked to the four major basilicas ...
The people who pray for us
I was never a fan of popular music, not even as a teenager. In that way -- and probably a few others -- I was an "old fogie," even as a kid. Instead of listening to the Top 40, I stuck with a pretty small ...
