It was Easter Sunday 1954. It’s Bob and June White and their four kids, my sister Liz 8, my brother Jim 5, my sister Jean 1 and me, 6. Mass at St. Olav has just let out and we’re walking down the sidewalk in downtown Minneapolis. A reporter from the Minneapolis...

Back in the 150Os a man by the name of Ignatius (he’d later become a saint) had a dream. He wanted to start a religious order that would revitalize a church that had grown quite complacent in its zeal for the Gospel. Just when it looked like his dream would happen it...

It was the summer of 1936, the hottest summer on record. Eighteen- year -old Bob White Sr., my dad had hitchhiked to Missouri for the summer to take a job pounding spikes for the railroad. The great migration of “Okies” from Oklahoma to the promised land of California...

When I first learned about the Ten Commandments as a child, it bothered me to think that God could be jealous.  Jealousy seems such a negative emotion — easily capable of getting out of hand or pushing us to take extreme actions to hold on to something we want.  But...

This week we are looking at Mark’s account of Jesus in the desert. It’s very brief. It just says that the “Spirit drove Jesus into the desert. He remained there forty days tempted by Satan.” In Mathew and Luke, we have a more detailed about those temptations. “Jesus,...

As part of my part time chaplain duties at Hol Family Catholic I had mass this Friday, Feb 2. In my homily I talked about the old Bill Murray movie “Ground Hog’s Day”. In the movie Ground Hog's Day Feb. 2 is a day that keeps repeating itself. It stays caught in in...

If you listen to these Gospel stories that we hear week after week it seems that Jesus is always inviting people to “come.” In John 21 on the shore over an open fire the Risen Jesus has prepared breakfast for the disciples who have just landed on shore with a huge...

Part of my  role as priest for a parish like St. Victoria includes what I call a backstage pass to people’s lives. With it I have the privilege of being in on some of the most intimate moments of a family’s life together, the good times and the hard times and...