Blessed Pope John XXIII revived a custom in Rome of visiting 40 “station churches” during Lent. The North American College, the bishops’ American seminary in Rome, has embraced this devotion with great seriousness and each morning about 6 a.m. the seminarians start trekking to the church du jour. And they walk briskly. I don’t think this is just a way of reminding the older guys like me that the years have not been kind, but sometimes it feels that way.
This Lent I was...
Anyone who has worked in a country where a foreign language is spoken can testify to the difficulty of translating thoughts and words adequately.
I spent 20 years in El Salvador and have my share of stories about priests and nuns who had trouble converting what they meant to say into Spanish. Likewise, the Salvadorans who tried to express themselves in English had difficulty, although this seemed more comic for us than the mistakes we missionaries made.
I remember a fellow who wanted to...
