“This is a time to say, ‘Yes, let’s speak about the hunger...for the presence of God.’ This is the moment, and I think the bishops want to do that. But some of our pastoral leaders are making it difficult.”

My grief did not unfold neatly or in any predictable way as the “stages of grief” might suggest.

“Lebanon cannot be left prey to the course of events or those who pursue their own unscrupulous interests,” Pope Francis said on the day of prayer and reflection for peace in Lebanon.

Pope Francis has agreed to meet in December with Indigenous survivors of Canada’s notorious residential schools amid calls for a papal apology for the Catholic Church’s role in the abuse and deaths of thousands of native children.

How is it possible that God uses a sinner, a frail and weak person, to do His will? Everything has been prepared in God’s plan.

There is the faith that we profess, and then there is the experience of faith by which we believe. One is a list of notions. The other is an encounter with a person.