By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Don’t let the whole Boy Monk persona thing fool you. I have a good old-fashioned nasty Irish temper including, on occasion, a very sharp tongue. Several…
Posts published by “Mike O'Brien”
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Wisdom, of course, can come from many unusual places and from very unexpected sources. Yet, most people still are surprised when I point to a Catholic…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– The Chinese zodiac assigns an animal and its unique characteristics to each year of a rotating 12-year cycle. If I had such calendar naming rights, I’d…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Whether you celebrate it as a Christian holiday or not, I think the true meaning of Christmas is that some 2,000 years ago, a force for…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– (Editor’s note: this is an excerpt from Monastery Mornings, published in 2021 by Paraclete Press.) Once when I was a boy, my family and I found…
By Gary Topping– At this writing, we are well into the holiday season, with Thanksgiving behind us, Christmas on the horizon, and lots of holiday get-togethers in between. So with…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Most people knew him as Father Alan. Originally, however, he was Francis Joseph Hohl, born in Chicago in 1926 and raised in Rib Lake, Wisconsin, a…
By Deacon Mark Solak (Guest Contributor)– Homily, 1st Sunday of Advent, Cycle C November 28, 2021 This Sunday marks the beginning of the Season of Advent, and a new liturgical…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– An unexpected fringe benefit of my Utah-mini-tour promoting my new Monastery Mornings (Paraclete Press 2021) book has been talking with people about their interfaith encounters. One…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– For many decades, a lovely set of painted tiles displayed the image of Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe, on an outside wall at my beloved Trappist…