By Michael Patrick O’Brien– The fifty year old photo of my family’s old aluminum Christmas tree includes a surprise. A small and almost undetectable child in red and white striped…
Posts published by “mobrien@joneswaldo.com”
By Gary Topping– The Third Sunday of Advent, which we have just passed, is known as Gaudete Sunday. “Gaudete” is a plural Latin imperative, which could properly be translated as…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien and Donald Raymond O’Brien– One of the miracles of family history research is the chance to spend the holidays with family members you never even met,…
By Gary Topping– Advent is primarily a season of anticipation and reflection, but it can also be a season of confession and penance as our reflection leads us to consider…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– “I once was lost, but now am found…” – John Newton, Amazing Grace In 1925, during a visit to her mother’s home town in Corning, Ohio,…
By Gary Topping– “Are you sure there isn’t some kind of indulgence available to those of us who actually get our Advent wreath up by the first Sunday of Advent”?…
Now that we are in the Advent Season, my friends Alexa, Siri, and I had a long discussion about religion and spirituality the other day. Well, maybe it was not…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– The recent headline in The Christian Science Monitor, discussing a survey of millions of books, periodicals, and other records that now have been digitized, startled me.…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– I hesitate to disrupt the warm feelings of the upcoming holiday feasts and festivals, but something must be said. Gravy is the Rodney Dangerfield of Thanksgiving…
Michael Patrick O’Brien– Legend and tradition say that St. Patrick used the image of the shamrock to illustrate and explain the mystery of the Holy Trinity to the Irish. It’s…