By Michael Patrick O’Brien– A pair of initials carved into a wooden bar at a historic Chicago hotel have taught me about the myriad ways people express their love. During…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– The first time I took my family, including a grandchild, to my favorite Northern Utah pumpkin patch, I suspected the youngest among us would enjoy it.…
What’s happened, three years after my book “Monastery Mornings,” to the Utah Trappist monks and their lovely old abbey?
5 By Michael Patrick O’Brien– In the Fall of 2021, I published a book about growing up at a now-closed Trappist monastery in rural Northern Utah. Telling that wonderful story has…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– The only monk who ever came to my house for dinner was the one I never expected to be there. It happened quite serendipitously, just before…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– (Note: this is the final article in a four-part series about the people, art, and architecture of my “Third Place,” the Utah Catholic parish church my…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– (Note: this is the third article in a four-part series about the people, art, and architecture of my “Third Place,” the Utah Catholic parish church my…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– (Note: this is the second article in a four-part series about the people, art, and architecture of my “Third Place,” the Utah Catholic parish church my…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– (Note: this is the first article in a four-part series about the people, art, and architecture of my “Third Place,” the Utah Catholic parish church my…
By Gary Topping– My wife Marianna and I were the recent and grateful beneficiaries of a kind offer from our chief blogger Mike O’Brien and his wife Vicki to join…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– After the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Northern Utah befriended me when I was a boy in the early 1970s, I enjoyed the fruits…