Recently, as I went to take a promenade at the Baton Rouge City Park on one bright, sunny & winter morning, I reflected back upon the past and pondered some things during this holy season of Lent. It was a great way to get some healthy activity done and enrich more than just the physical mode to include emotional and spiritual exercises as well.

I was just sitting on one of our antique chairs that went with a table had belonged to my late parents and my deceased grandparents.

Music has been so integral to my life and faith walk. Like a few years ago when I was in the St. Jude Choir and our Leader, Nicholas Abraham, PhD had noted, even Scripture validates this for those of us who used to think we could never sing or play music: “Make a joyful NOISE (Not Sound) unto the Lord! (Psalm 100: 1)

There are countless persons, basilicas, churches, shrines, seminaries, convents, towns, and cities named after St. Joseph. My native country, Canada, has him as its patron.

Recently and in the past, it was fun to get together with family during the Thanksgiving Holidays to catch up on things and find out what folks had been up to lately. Besides celebrating the victories of LSU and the Saints, as well as not cooking, since we went in with our siblings and ordered turkey and all the fixings from Matherne's Supermarket, I was very intrigued by what my retired brother-in-law, Dale, shared with us about in his adventures with storage auctions.

As we all find ways to give thanksgiving for the many blessings that we have, I can't help but focus on the gift of faith and insight

Gilbert K. Chesterton once stated that Christianity is the only democracy where even the dead get to vote. In light of that, I share two stories.

There are different ways of being excluded in life.

Harvard psychologist Robert Coles, in describing the French mystic Simone Weil, once suggested that what she really suffered from and what motivated her life was her moral loneliness. What is that?

Perhaps all of Jesus’ invitations to us can be summarized in one word, surrender. We need to surrender to love.

Why do we baptize infants?  Shouldn’t we wait and let them make their own decision?

The Mass readings during the 13th and 14th Sundays in Ordinary Time offer timely inspiration to strengthen our call to holiness in gratitude.