By Gary Topping– In my idle moments—which, nowadays in my retirement, seem to be plentiful—I sometimes go to YouTube. You never know what’s going to come up, from the most…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– (Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from Monastery Mornings by Michael Patrick O’Brien, published by Paraclete Press in August 2021). During one of our early visits…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– James Fox, the longtime abbot of Kentucky’s Gethsemani Abbey, visited the Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity Abbey in Huntsville, Utah many times. Gethsemani…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Monks are good examples of spirituality. This is true, of course, not only for men. Yet, it also is true that monks are good examples of…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Fifty years ago, I stumbled upon a book now a hundred years old that I expect my daughter and I will continue to love together, for…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Well before any monks arrived there seventy-five years ago in July 1947, the old Trappist monastery—located in Huntsville in the far eastern side of Weber County…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– One of the most popular songs when I was growing up, surprisingly, was about prayer. Burt Bacharach wrote it, and both Dionne Warwick and Aretha Franklin…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– The Bible is full of beautiful writing, including the poetic image in Isaiah 2:4 about nations beating “swords into plowshares.” As a child of the war-torn…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– I am not an Italian, nor an opera fan, nor a New Yorker. As a result, one could wonder why in the world I fell head…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– I recently cleaned and moved out of my office at the Salt Lake City law firm where I worked for thirty-seven years. As I labored, I…