By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Mark Twain is known around the world for many things, including my personal favorite of his many books, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Twain’s name even…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– A century ago, my Northern Utah hometown was a rough and tumble place. Even Chicago gangster Al Capone reportedly said Ogden’s infamous 25th Street was too…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– This Halloween, my favorite Catholic cemetery—off the beaten path in rural Northern Utah—has transfigured into a much happier haunt. Pioneer monks from Kentucky’s Gethsemani Abbey (where…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– The soundtrack of my Notre Dame education—Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run—was released a half century ago in August 1975, well before I knew where I would…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Each October celebration of national book month reminds me that books are some of our most devoted life companions. A relatively new book by a friend…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– In 1949, a New York City lawyer named Porter R. Chandler offered some farm land in northwestern New York State to Kentucky’s Gethsemani Abbey. The constitutional…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– The recent death of Russell M. Nelson—the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—brings to mind again his historic 2019 meeting with Pope…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Nearly a decade after Northern Utah’s beloved Trappist monastery—Holy Trinity Abbey in Huntsville—closed in 2017, there’s only one monk from there still living in Utah.  One…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– A Vermont wedding, a Niagara Falls honeymoon, and a Utah divorce. What could it all mean? That’s what I was hoping to figure out about my…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Two people I know walked the Camino de Santiago this year. The Camino includes centuries-old (and very long) pathways leading to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in…