By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Dear sixth-grade-girl-whose-name-I-don’t-remember: Our last year of elementary school was heavenly for me. I now realize, many years later, that it may have been hellish for you.…
Posts published by “mobrien@joneswaldo.com”
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– I attended a lecture last week in my hometown Salt Lake City about the Irish workers who helped build the transcontinental rail. The nation recently observed…
By Gary Topping– No doubt many of our readers have seen the short film clip of the actor and activist Martin Sheen, who claims to have been arrested more than…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– For many years, a mysterious painting of the French city where I was born had haunted me. The art work is not frightening; it’s quite lovely.…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– My fate, it seems, is that about every fifty years, someone will up and yell at me in church. The second to last time was when…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Easter is delightful but mystifying. It celebrates a wonderful event, resurrection, that I’ve never seen. With no personal knowledge of resurrection, each Easter season I try…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– As devoted lifelong Catholics, my family and I had witnessed all the events of Holy Week and Easter, but never anything like an actual funeral procession…
By Gary Topping– Passover occurs this week. The story of the Exodus is one that has captured the imagination of millions of people over many centuries. It has everything about…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– I think religious art often touches our souls because it reveals truths about both the divine and the human. The Pieta at St. Peter’s Basilica, for…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– A couple of times each year in the 1960s and early 1970s, usually for back-to-school, Christmas, or Easter shopping, my small town family would journey to…