When Michelle Yeoh, the star of Everything Everywhere All at Once and the winner of seven Academy Awards, was interviewed on the “champagne carpet” she mentioned that what drew her to the script was the homage it gives to moms as superheroes, as her chara...
I went to a sound check on Friday night with my sister Teresa; I was full of what ifs, uncertainty, and skepticism. Is this going to go well? Isn’t it all sort of crazy? Aren’t we going to make fools of ourselves? The occasion for the sound check was that...
Last December, on the memorial of Our Lady of Loreto (December 10th), along with my brother monk, Br. Maximilian Mary, I professed solemn, life-long vows of obedience, stability, and conversion of life as a Benedictine monk of St. Benedict’s Abbey in Atch...
“I always think of going down to collect the mail. Looking at the pile of envelopes, there is a little expectation: might there be a letter there that changes everything?” It is a surprising example to use for such a weighty topic as the religious sense, ...
At the New York Encounter, I discovered that the wonder and vertigo I sometimes feel looking up at the stars can be experienced looking around at the ground, beneath and below. A rock can “tell the story of an event”. I looked at the image of a fairly un...
I attended the panel discussion entitled “You Cannot Love What Shocks You” for three reasons: Because a friend was participating in the panel, to hear anecdotes of the inimitable Lorenzo Albacete by people who knew him personally, but mainly because this ...
Fr. Giussani, in his newly translated book The Miracle of Hospitality, describes the conditions for hospitality as a miracle, noting that, “If we do not feel welcomed or loved in the first place, we cannot share anything. In other words, we cannot make ou...
The New York Encounter has become synonymous with forging bridges across cultural divides, highlighting the positive ways in which faith intersects with culture, and serving as a place of hope and friendship for thousands of people every year. What possib...
The New York Encounter is an amazing adventure culminating in a weekend that for thousands becomes an experience of gratitude, joy, and hope. As tiring as it can be, I always say that the NYE weekend is the one I expect the most, the one I enjoy the most,...
My name is Fr. Michael and I am a Diocesan priest for the Diocese of Lafayette, IN. I first encountered Fr. Giussani by means of other men studying for the priesthood. These men, also studying for Lafayette Diocese, attended Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in E...
Not long ago I happened to read the desperate cry of a mother in an article published in the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera. This mother was hopeless as her son had fallen into drug use, becoming dangerous to himself and his family. After many atte...
I recently spent several weeks in Florida visiting a dear friend, Jess. During our rich days together I got to know many of her own friends — in Pensacola, Jacksonville, Port St Lucie and West Palm Beach — about whom I have known for a long time, both bec...
Recently we met for a School of Community centered on a simple question: how do we accept the invitation that the Pope made to us in St. Peter’s Square on October 15 to accompany him in the “prophecy for peace”? At the end of two months of working on the ...
https://english.clonline.org/letters/2023/01/11/matteo-chicago-university