The rumor spread across campus like the brush fires that sparked during dry fall afternoons at the mouth of Bloody Run: someone had got a girl up the lane pregnant. The Headmaster knew. They were going to get expelled. At first we thought it was Sam. He had a ground floor single and he took […]
The overcrowded mind can lead to an unsettled soul. Over the years I’ve learned to trust my techniques for quieting my mind. I let my consciousness float, drift into an undefined space that suspends the forward momentum of thought, quiets down the chatter and waits for a structure to form. Even as I wait the […]
D’s Communion One time when I was a young man I caught the scent of the priest Through the tannins of the communion wine. He smelled like my father On the morning that he buried my mother. I had just married. My new wife Kept two paces behind me In the communion line. Taking the host was […]
On late days one summer, I would walk through the rich heat to the small chapel in the sacristy in the rear of the church, off the corridor that joined the monastery and the church together. Bishop Ansgar would say Mass each afternoon: sepulchral, solemn, devout. What I can remember about those Masses was how […]