McGrath Institute Blog

St. Julian Peter Eymard, in his little devotional handbook called Month of St. Joseph, tells us that “devotion to St. Joseph is one of the choicest graces that God can give to a soul, for it is tantamount to revealing the entire treasury of our Lord’s graces.”

Looking at the pictures of the Cross of Christ, shining with the light of the morning sun, intact amidst the ashes and debris from the fire at Notre-Dame de Paris, I found them very moving. Is it a miracle that the cross and altar and candles survived? It depends on what you are willing to call a miracle.

Out-of-uniform “dress down” days are a common way for Catholic schools to incentivize charitable giving among their students. This month’s dress down day at my children’s grade school benefitted the St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry, so the school was collecting canned goods instead of money.

The world offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.
- Pope Benedict XVI

When the alarm goes off at half past some-way-too-early hour, I wish I could say the words of Pope Benedict XVI dance through my head and I spring from my warm bed, ecstatic about my morning run.

After many failed attempts dating back to the early 1880s, Grand Canyon National Park was officially created by an act of Congress, signed by Woodrow Wilson a hundred years ago today, February 26, 1919.