Holy Thursday begins what has been traditionally called the Sacred Triduum in Holy Week. It is the time in the Church's calendar in which we liturgically commemorate the Passion, ...

A few weeks ago, I stood in the sacred spot where John the Baptist baptized Jesus. The Baptism site is in Jordan and I was in-country for a week ...

Shame and sorrow—those were the two words Sister Anne Curtis uses to describe how she felt after meeting face-to-face with Iraqi refugees. "The feelings were very intense," ...

For years before I actually traveled there, I dreamed of Africa. Elephants and gazelle and women with long necks infiltrated the landscape of my ...

For years I felt a gap between my parents and me—a gap of time and geography. When they were young, their social lives revolved around church; few of my ...

Before I went to bed, I made sure I was clean. I purified the tub with all the soap in the tiny shampoo bottle. Immersed myself in ...

In the living room of my next-door neighbors' house is a wooden crate. It's nothing fancy, just pieces of plywood nailed together, but Kim and Matt keep the box in a place of honor by ...

For many Catholics, Marian apparition sites are tightly linked to the idea of healing. The places where Mary came to Earth are usually viewed as holy ground, charged with the promise of heavenly power and ...

We see Rabbi X. walking down the streets of our small Southern city, and we see others staring at him. He wears the outfit of a Jew from Eastern ...

Eight days after birth, a Jewish male infant is circumcised in a ceremony called the bris milah (bris means "covenant" in Hebrew). It's a party: relatives and friends ...