Bulletin column for St. Mary's Parish in Griffith, Ind. My dear friends in Christ, When I was but a wee lad, I loved Christmas. The presents, the party, the decorations, the presents, family – it was my favorite time of year. But then something happened in high school. It was the Easter season. I was sitting in the last pew when my uncle Stas poked me in the back with the collection basket. “Here, you’re an usher now,” he said in a raspy, fading voice. Suddenly, I found mysel

Bulletin column for St. Mary's Parish in Griffith, Ind. Growing up, my mom worked part-time, so every summer it was off to grandma’s house I’d go, every midweek. My grandmother lived in a post-World War II Cape Cod two blocks south of Ridge Road in Hobart, and every time I walked into her house, I swear she was in the kitchen, towel over her shoulder, making something for somebody. Maybe she had a sick friend, so there was a pot of golabki, her Polish stuffed cabbage, on the

Bulletin column for St. Mary's Parish in Griffith, Ind. When I was a junior in high school, my English teacher had each of us write about our "disability." We then had to share this with the whole class. Surely most of my classmates were expecting that I'd talk about my being born blind in my left eye. Yet, I've never thought of that as setting me back in any way. Instead, I focused on my sharp tongue and quick wit. You see, the ability to cut people with my words is much mor

Bulletin column for St. Mary's Parish, Griffith, Ind. Remember the movie “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory?” Not the remake, the trippy 1960s version. In that movie, there was a bratty little girl named Veruca Salt, who would nag her father incessantly for whatever she wanted until he gave in and gave it to her. She had a song in the movie, where she exclaimed, “Don’t care how, I want it now!” I think a lot of us suffer from a strain of this disease I like to call “Veru