By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Most people knew him as Father Alan. Originally, however, he was Francis Joseph Hohl, born in Chicago in 1926 and raised in Rib Lake, Wisconsin, a…

By Deacon Mark Solak (Guest Contributor)– Homily, 1st Sunday of Advent, Cycle C November 28, 2021 This Sunday marks the beginning of the Season of Advent, and a new liturgical…

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…

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…

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…

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.…

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…

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…

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…

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…