Indonesia is a country most of us know only through the media, but a recent visit to America House by a member of the Religious of the Sacred Heart brought it into closer focus for me. Back for a home visit, Sister Nance O’Neil has been teaching in Jakarta for 14 years, at AtmaJaya University,

Portraying Dorothy Day on a stage would seem a challenge of formidable proportions in and of itself. But to do those portrayals in a series of makeshift settings, church sanctuaries and communal dining rooms—as well as on actual stages—raises the stakes of such a challenge. Sarah Melici

My memory of the one role I ever had in a high school play has largely faded, but I do recall the director, a young English teacher who brought to his task great energy and commitment. Living in my Jesuit community is another energetic and committed young English teacher, Chris Derby, S.J., a Jesuit

Lent for me evokes the memory of a semi-darkened church on the upper west side of Manhattan. During a Good Friday evening service there 30 years ago, a young man rose from a nearby pew and read a passage from Elie Wiesel’s Night (1958)—an autobiographical account of his experience as a t

A mansion of 87 rooms, built on Long Island in the 1920’s, surrounded by spacious grounds—hardly the kind of setting in which you might expect to find a gathering of mostly middle-aged Hispanic men and women spending a weekend in prayerful silence. And yet there we were, a group of 14 ma

Fresh flowers, lighted candles, live music—can this be the soup kitchen that just hours earlier had fed 400? Yes, a humble church social hall in Lower Manhattan had been transformed to a scene of celebration. The celebration in early December marked the 20th anniversary of a group named the Un

Imagine a dark winter morning. A line of poorly dressed men—black, white, Latino—stretches alongside a 1920’s brick building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The building is the Holy Name Centre, and the men, most of them homeless, are waiting to take showers in the center&rsqu

Appalachia stands out as a section of the eastern United States long regarded as a symbol of poverty and exploitation. But as several visitors from Wheeling Jesuit University observed during a visit to America House, it also represents a proud people with a strong tradition and culture. The visitors

Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, often stays at America House when she comes to New York. She was here last fall for the opening of the opera based on her book, which recounts her experiences as spiritual advisor to men on death row. What we spoke of, though, was not so much the ope

After nine years in Communist prisons and labor camps in Vietnam, Joseph Nguyen Doan emerged with his faith not only intact but deepened, and with a determination to continue serving his people in his native land. A Jesuit, he is now the episcopal vicar for religious in the archdiocese of Ho Chi Min