Caroling. Festive parties. Charming decorations. Cookies. Gift-exchanges. The message is all around us: We should be happy because it’s Christmas. Indeed, to be anything other than effusively joyful means running the risk of being labeled a scrooge. So, no matter what is going on in our lives – or in …

Youth ministry began at Sts. Peter and Paul Parish in Reading in the fall of 1998, and, soon afterwards, we began seeking opportunities for the compulsory “mission trip.” We didn’t have to look far. At the same time, our Parish Mission Commission was filing the paperwork to recognize a small …

BE IN MY EYES, BE IN MY HEART I could not sleep the night before I met a Catholic priest for the first time. Until that year of my life, my knowledge of Catholicism had been informed by negative headlines, my Evangelical pastors’ condemnations of the Church, and an encounter …