By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Sometimes we take existence for granted and become oblivious to the sheer wonder of being. That’s why I recently took a couple of remedial courses on…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– When I was a boy, my Trappist monk friends shared their homemade wheat bread with me. It was a precious moment of monastic hospitality, made even…

By Gary Topping– (Editor’s note: a previous version of this article appeared in the Intermountain Catholic. Part one of this story is available here.) Mary Bell and the McDougall family learned…

By Gary Topping– (Editor’s note: a previous version of this story appeared in the Intermountain Catholic.) When a young man announces his intention to enter the priesthood, we are filled…

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…

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…