Homily on the Spot

One of the most memorable experiences of my time as chaplain to college students happened about seven years ago — in one of the most rugged, forgotten corners of Appalachia, Kentucky. Ten students from Montclair State University, along with our campus minister, packed into vans during spring break to work with the Christian Appalachian Project, rebuilding homes for some of th...

There’s a moment in life that sneaks up on you. I don’t know exactly when it happened to me, but I know it did. Somehwere around turning fifty -give or take it hit me: I went from being current and up to date… to sounding more and more like my grandfather complaining about “kids these days.” And to be fair, some of this has been building for a while. For example: I still wri...

A few years ago, a rescue diver from the United States Navy made a sobering observation after years of pulling people from the water.  He said the most dangerous part, isn’t the instant someone first falls in. As terrifying as that is, people are resilient, and the survival instinct can be incredibly powerful and strong.  People will fight, kick and struggle to stay...

If you spend enough time around college students, you end up learning things you never saw coming.  I’m 52 years old and after nearly 27 years as a priest,  I somehow now know that if you say two specific numbers in a row (which I’m not about to say up here, for the sake of everyone’s sanity) a whole roomful of kids will lose their minds – and no, even AI can’t expl...