The ministry of the reader at Mass is pivotal to the whole liturgical celebration.

Some of the priests identified as abusers, staring out from the pages of the local newspapers, are not strangers to me. I was on the faculty of the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington, N.Y., from 1965 through 1979. I taught Scripture all those years and was rector for the last six. I

Several years ago my husband, Jim, and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary in San Francisco. It was a vacation to remember, but not because of the sights. I went home with much more than I came with. It began one morning after leaving a bookstore in Union Square. We saw a bearded old man sitt

The Amish are a unique phenomenon in American and Christian culture. During a summer vacation when I was 17, I had the rare opportunity to experience the life of these people in an intimate way. Side by side with a young family of eight Old Order Amish, I milked cows, tilled fields, bailed hay and h

It started months ago. Weeks before the autumnal equinox, long before the first frost, pumpkins began appearing in the lobby of my apartment building. Bedecked with straw hats and carved faces, they crowded our entryway and clustered around mailboxes, announcing the arrival of fall. In short order,

When I think about the Holy Family I remember other holy families as well, the ones who brought me up in the faith, who showed me how to love and who taught me how to celebrate Christmas.