Mary Theresa Wiseman was the oldest child of Charles Bernard and Christine Margaret McMillen Wiseman, two Catholics from the area around Elizabethtown in Hardin County, Ky. Their family grew to include five girls and two boys. Bernard was a farmer…
Jeremiah 31:31-34 Hebrews 5:7-9 John 12:20-33 Happy springtime to all of you! Have you ever thought what it would be like if Lent, Holy Week and Easter occurred in the fall instead of the…
Elizabeth Jane McWilliams was born in Rockford, Ill., the only child of Frances Marguerite “Betty” McWilliams and Francis Lloyd “Mac” McWilliams. These two Midwesterners amply gifted their daughter with Midwestern frankness and the Catholic faith. In a lengthy interview during…
Job 7:1-71 Corinthians 9:16-23 Mark 1:29-39 The first reading for this Sunday made me cringe: What in the world can I do with Job! We’re just not comfortable with complaining; not such free-flowing,…
Isaiah 60:1-6 Ephesians 3:2-6 Matt 2:1-12 The key to this feast is in the epistle of Paul, in which he writes to the Ephesians of a mystery made known to him by revelation, the totally unexpected word that the Gentiles…
Sister Frances Weber was born Cornelia Frances Weber in Freeport, Texas, one of four children of Roland Emile Weber and Elizabeth Mary Kleinpeter, both Louisianans by birth. To her parents and her siblings, Helen, Joe and James, she was Connie. She…
Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11 Ps 85:9-14 2 Peter 3:8-14 Mark 1:1-8 “Make way, make way” is a refrain usually shouted by those who announce the coming of someone important. In Biblical times,…
Lois Ann Gohl was born the fifth child of William August Julius Gohl, of St. Paul, Minn., and Rose Caroline Woerner Gohl of St. Louis. Their large family home was in the St. Louis suburb of Webster Groves, where Ann attended…
(Author’s Note on Kay Lane SL: Kay left us nothing written about herself. But she was a great storyteller. What follows here are the facts from Kay’s personnel record, embellished with the memories of her novitiate classmates, friends with whom she…
Author’s Note: This remembrance of Sister Marietta Goy draws heavily on the report of an interview of Marietta done in 2008 by Kathleen O’Malley. Additional material is from Marietta’s personnel file. When Marietta Goy came into the world she was…
Revelation 7:2 ff. 1 John 3:1 ff. Matthew 5:1 ff. Happy All Saints Day! We have a set of readings today that tell us how one gets to be a saint. Each scriptural passage seems to say, do this and…
Rita Hurtt was the third of four children of Arthur and Gertrude Hurtt of Pagedale, on the inner ring of St. Louis suburbs where families had large yards and gardens. Rita tells us something about her family and early childhood…