About twelve years ago, St. Joseph came into my life in a new way. Not long before, I had taken the plunge from singlehood to married life, jumping into the deep end of the pool by marrying a widower with six children. More »

The girl was walking in the fields some ways off from her home, when two strangers appeared and asked her to pick them some fruit. Brought up to show courtesy to adults, the nine-year-old hurried to obey. Not until she was in the forest did she realize it was a trick. More »

Special things happen when people gather to celebrate the Sabbath. On one particular day around the year a.d. 50, a group of women gathered by the river outside their city of Philippi to observe the Sabbath. More »

The story and legacy of St. Paul loom so large, both in the New Testament and in the history of the church, that we can sometimes lose sight of the man in the midst of the story. Even Paul’s most famous moment—his sudden conversion to Christianity—is wrapped in mystery. Writing about it himself, Paul simply says: More »

If there had been a bestseller book list in 1609, Introduction to the Devout Life would have been at the top. Perhaps it was unusual even in the seventeenth century for a spiritual book to become so popular, but there was a reason that this one—written by the well-loved Bishop of Geneva, Francis de Sales—hit a chord with so many. More »

One day around 1780, an Episcopalian stepmother opened her King James Bible and introduced her stepdaughter to Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. . . .” Though the two were not close and the woman was preoccupied with many cares, the moment was extraordinarily significant. More »

After six years in exile in France, Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was back in England and headed once more for his cathedral. His flock rejoiced at his homecoming, lining the road before him with their cloaks and crying, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” More »

The gospels tell us nothing about Mary's pregnancy except for its very beginning and its end. But without straying into pious fantasy or fiction, and since nothing indicates that hers was in any way not a normal pregnancy, it's not inappropriate to meditate on the not-so-simple truth of the Word made Flesh growing among us. More »