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The Christmas Missionary Midnight Mass

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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…

The Guadalupe Tiles Mystery

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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…

Utah’s Native Son Trappist Monk

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By Michael Patrick O’Brien– After Trappist monks traveled in 1947 from Kentucky to start a new abbey in rural Huntsville, Utah, the state already filled with Latter-day Saints eventually embraced…

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Northern Utah

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By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Although I like to write too, I have only a few fleeting connections with the great American journalist and humorist Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain.…

A monk fish story

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By Michael Patrick O’Brien– You cannot live in Utah without hearing a good fish story or two. My personal favorite involves an unconventional catch by an unconventional man. He was…

Forty Years at St. Thomas More Parish, 1981-2021

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By Gary Topping– The Kingdom of God, Jesus said, “is like mustard seed which, when planted in the soil, is the smallest of all the earth’s seeds, yet once it…

Monkservation Easements

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By Michael Patrick O’Brien– The laudable efforts to preserve the Huntsville Trappist monastery open land in Northern Utah (see: “Huntsville monastery has faded away, but preservation prayers have been answered…

Does a famous Beatles song channel a popular Catholic prayer?

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By Michael Patrick O’Brien– When looking for sacred allusions in Beatles’ music, folks often point to Paul McCartney’s “Mother Mary…speaking words of wisdom” lyrics in “Let it Be.” McCartney has…

The monastery that wasn’t

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By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Those of us who knew and loved the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, fondly recall the place’s unique Quonset hut structure. Yet, two of the…