On a fine sunny Sunday in May, the priest in the pulpit was talking about the everyday beauty that may have escaped the attention of some of the busier people in the pews, but clearly not his. With the precision of an amateur botanist, he described the magnificence of the dogwoods, lilacs and cherry

I am sitting at my desk near the library’s back door when I notice a hat on the floor. Evidently one of the many theology students rushing to class dropped it. I notice that it is a fine hat, made of wool and clearly hand-knit, so I trust its owner will return shortly. If not, I remind myself,

When he looks back on the years when he was a young parish priest in suburban New Jersey and then in wounded, smoldering Newark, Msgr. Thomas A. Kleissler remembers the lessons he learned in the living rooms and kitchens of his parishioners. It was, he said, the richest experience of my life as a pr

It is safe to assume that within the communion of saints, envy doesn’t have a chance. It’s a good thing, too. After all, if saints weren’t so, well, saintly, imagine the plight of a noble Briton named Patrick. He’d surely be the subject of all kinds of begrudgery. Why? Most s

It was the final day of Catholic Schools Week, a dreary and wet winter’s day in the Vailsburg section of Newark, N.J. Stepping gingerly on the marble floor of Sacred Heart Church were 500 children from the parish school, who had come to hear the word of God at a special liturgy to mark the wee

At midday on Christmas Eve, I found myself under a large white tent adjacent to St. John’s Church in downtown Newark, where I was mingling with hundreds of poor and homeless people from that impoverished and battered city. I wish I could tell you I was there out of the goodness of my heart, gi