Being in the presence of persons of fame or in some way a celebrity can make us feel important or a little kind of celebrity ourselves. Thirty years ago I shook hands with Pope John Paul II and I'd say he felt pretty good ...

Maybe you have heard the statement about the two types of people. One group always finishes what they begin and so forth. We love to categorize others and sometimes ourselves. We can excuse or accuse others because they ...

"Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream." This is the opening line of a little ditty which forms what is called a "Round". I assume we all learned how to sing more loudly than any others who were involved in this ...

Several times each summer, my brother and I go out sailing on his two-person boat which has one sail and several leaky wounds. We are hearty mates and as we are preparing for the lift off or embarkation, or push-away, ...

More than several times I have been late for lunch in our community's dining room. Upon meeting several of my Jesuit brothers out in the hall, I have asked them "What's for lunch?" Their spontaneous answer is that they ...

If you were to live absolutely alone, I mean if nobody else was ever around, things in your living-space would not need to have names. You would not have to explain what that thingamajig was, because you would know it by ...

"Fonly is perhaps a new word for an old, but familiar, regret". We have "fonly" moments when we wish we had skillfully ended an argument with a well-placed comment or reminder. Leaving that encounter you might be saying ...

In a class this week, speaking with first-year students, I asked a young fellow what an adjective was. He was flustered more than a little bit and replied that it was "an action", but then took that back saying "No, a verb ...

In my Gramma O'Connor's house there was a dark basement which had a room within a room. If we were judged to be naughty, bad, terrible, incorrigible (take your pick according to the transgression), we were threatened to ...

There is the old story about the holy monk who on Ash Wednesday decided to hang a huge sausage from his ceiling above his face for mortification during Lent. Each week he would lower the meaty temptation lower and lower. ...