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 ...
A good scare
When I was growing up, Halloween wasn't nearly as popular as it is now. Costumes weren't as elaborate, adults didn't participate, and nobody sold ready-made decorations -- probably because ...
Praise the Lord -- and forget the ammunition
Election year language often involves mudslinging, name-calling, taunts, and insinuations. We say we want our politicians to tell us their policies and proposals. We complain that they hardly ever articulate ...
Formed by the storms
Growing up in Cleveland, I experienced "lake effect" snow dumps. Spending most of my adult life around Boston meant winters punctuated by the whipping winds and ice of classic New England nor'easters. ...
