Lamech Inventing The Oud

D. J. Waldie's strikingly beautiful book in 1996 about what it was like to grow up in Lakewood, Calif., "Holy Land," is one of many writings by this chronicler of Los Angeles's past and future.

On “Preach” this week, the Rev. Kareem Smith, pastor of St. Michael the Archangel Church in Co-op City, the Bronx, reflects with host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., on the Gospel reading for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time—the wedding at Cana.

“I can no longer kid myself that death is a distant reality,” Father Thomas Reese, former editor in chief of America, writes.

In several chapters of his new book "Hope: The Autobiography," Pope Francis directly addresses readers, looking back on his pontificate and urging all to keep the hope.