So I just spent two glorious days at the Collegeville Institute in Minnesota, which is one of my all time favorite places. Whether the lovely setting, the St. John’s Abbey, the St. John’s Bible, the amazing people who work there and the groups they gathered to talk about Vocation in Communities, I can’t pick just …
Category Archive: Campus Ministry
Mar
16
Consolations of the Week
It’s been quite a week. Besides the joy of seeing a new Pope emerge, my week has been blessed with many gifts where different people offered me much to be grateful for. The first are a bunch of new students and a new colleague. Instead of our usual spring break plan of organizing and taking …
Mar
10
Can You Love Someone Who Tells You to Drop Dead?
A Jewish woman who survived the concentration camps tells the story of the train ride to Auschwitz. She was with her little brother…and she looked down at him on the train and noticed that he didn’t have any shoes on. And she screamed at him, “What is WRONG with you? Can’t you keep you things …
Feb
21
Young Adults and the Weary Church
The 40th Chapter of Isaiah talks about depending on a God despite weariness and that God never grows weary. That would include growing weary of us. What do we grow weary of? For me I grow weary of the constant infighting in the church. Here’s one good example: There were two stories written of late …
Feb
19
One Word: Respect
Day #6: of the Fast, Pray, Give Calendar: So I’ll be honest, I forgot to look this morning at the FPG Calendar and I was cranky for most of the morning because I wasn’t exactly mindful. But at the end of the day, I was able to spend some time in mindfulness and offered the …
Jan
14
Bacik Instincts
I just got back from the Catholic Campus Ministry association’s Conference and was so excited to catch up with Fr. Jim Bacik, who was my favorite professor in Graduate School. He taught me Rahner in his classic Midwestern drawl that’s part Jimmy Stewart and part Gomer Pyle. He just retired as the longtime director at …
Jan
08
Chatting at CCMA
Sr. Julie from A Nun’s Life is live streaming the Catholic Campus Ministry conference here in beautiful Clearwater Beach. I’ve been asked to be in the chat room taking questions from our keynote presenters: Dr. Carolyn Woo from Catholic Relief Services, dr. Ed Hahnenberg from John Carroll University and Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia. Should …
Jan
07
Sandy in Long Island
I just returned from Long Island where 8 of us from St Joe’s took some time to help people effected by Superstorm Sandy. We were hosted by Fr. Ted Brown, the director of Campus Ministry at LIU Post and a LaSallette priest (His nameplate on his desk just reads Ted Brown, Friend) and he and …
Dec
24
The Annual Telling of My Favorite Christmas Story
I’ve told this story many times before including here on this blog. It’s from my Fordham days and it never gets old. My classmates Joe Squillace and Tracy Crimmins who are both still friends today were the community service types in college and they ran the annual “Give a Child a Christmas” campaign. Honestly it’s …
Dec
12
Showing Up
They say that 90 percent of life is showing up. As a spiritual director, I can tell you that sometimes that’s all that is needed. I hadn’t been back to the gross anatomy lab in some time, preferring to spend time at the simulation center at the medical school. I also think that after awhile …





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