Garage sales can be very personal experiences. Oftentimes, in addition to goods being sold, there are stories to be told. And so it was, on a recent Saturday morning when I arrived at a home where all its contents were being offered at bargain prices.

I was examining some books that were on display in the driveway when a gracious hostess informed me that there were many more inside the house. I eagerly accepted her invitation. But when I entered the house, I sensed the melancholy emptiness that one feels when a place of residence is divested of its vitality and reduced to furniture bearing price tags and boxes begging to be taken away. It was a shell. I played a few notes on the old upright and imagined moments when music and gaiety may have filled the house. I tried to imagine what it might have been like when the house was a home.

Shortly after the horrible tragedy in Newtown, while legislators and columnists and radio talk-show hosts were engaged in the debate about gun control and mental health as sort of a national catharsis to let them believe they were doing something meaningful, a syndicated editorial cartoon appeared that attempted to explain how something so evil could have occurred. It was a simple attempt to answer the question "Why?"

When you have daughters, one of the hazards of fatherhood is paying for their weddings – hopefully not while you’re still paying for their college education.

Grandparents commonly experience the humbling disappointment of being rejected by their children’s children. It is not because of any lack of love on their part. But when a baby is handed to grandma or grandpa, he or she sizes up the situation and insists, in the form of shrieks and squawks, on being returned immediately to either Mom or Dad.

On 8 Dec., 1962, the First Session of Vatican Council II adjourned. Three additional sessions intervened before the Council as a whole attained closure on 8 Dec., 1965. Vatican II was, of course, the most significant religious news event of the 20th century.

For the Behrens and Love families

Michael was a new swimmer on the team, and he was struggling to keep up. The summer league is low-key and relaxed, so our coach decided to approach the other coaches in the league about allowing Michael to compete in a younger age bracket than his own. Our coach expected no objections.

The saints, whose heroic witness, service and commitment to solidarity is so extraordinary that they must be formally acknowledged, seem to be crowding into our American scene more dramatically than ever before.

Six words. That’s all. Six simple words, but each time I uttered them, my throat tightened and my eyes burned.

Q. Why is it that so many Christians (including some Catholics) simply refuse to accept as doctrine the Virgin Birth?  This is not just myth, is it?

One certainty of life in Connecticut each New Year is the convening of our General Assembly, and this year is no exception. It is anticipated that our 187 legislators and 28 committees will sponsor more than 2,000 bills this session. During the 2013 session the state will face issues relating to the state budget and its deficit, gun control, drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants and the Earned Income Tax Credit, among many others.