Perspective

Kurisumala made it clear I couldn't walk away

Spirituality
Opinion
May 18, 2016

Essay: My vocation was not to be a Maryknoll missionary or a monk, but something else.

The street girls of India were just little girls after all

Spirituality
Soul Seeing
Mar 11, 2014

Soul Seeing: I was a tourist in India in 2006, brought by accident to an orphanage run by Salesian sisters. What I saw changed my life.

Dynamic California parish shows benefits of an alternative structure

Parish
Jan 2, 2014

Steve Mullin is a layman like only a few hundred others in the American church.

At St. Mary, one man was custodian of all of us

People
Aug 15, 2012

Appreciation

WILMINGTON, N.C. -- St. Mary is a majestic, historic parish church, on its 100th anniversary designated a basilica, and for this funeral Mass on a weekday in late June, every pew was filled. Mourners stood in the aisles, at the rear, spilling over into the vestibule. A beloved pastor, a saintly nun, a community leader -- who had commanded this outpouring of respect, the largest funeral Mass at St. Mary that even the oldest parishioners among us could remember?

No, it was Clifton.

In parish life that many of us knew, Clifton Lively would have been called the janitor; custodian might have been a more dignified title. In Catholic folklore the custodian was a shadowy figure, never to be found when you needed him, a set of keys jangling at his belt, wearing dingy trousers, his breath with the sour smell of last night's beverage, or sweeter, after a needed quick nip throughout the working day.