The Pastor’s Poor House and Christ Into the Wilderness
THE SHACKS OF OUR LIVES Because our Lenten self-denials often involve a self-amputation of our will, habits and surface pleasures, forty days can seem like four years. Four years. Shortly after his arrival in Korea in 1957, Fr. Al actually made his Lent last four-plus...
Leftover Meat
I imagine a sadness that magazine writers, biographers, and authors have each shared is the discarding of veritable gold gathered from interviews. Often, because anecdotes, quotes, or stories don’t match up with written narratives, the profound stories shared by those...
Lone Hero
To understand the missionary heart of Venerable Aloysius Schwartz, one should come to know of the Belgian who helped to inflame it – Chinese missionary, Fr. Vincent Lebbe. “Lebbe stories” had been passed like cups of sugar from one neighbor down to the next within the...
The Saints That Built Him
One of the treasures of having researched the life of Fr. Al for the biography I’ve been working on is the discovery of the many saints who’ve helped to engineer him. He drew from a wide and colorful palette of personalities, nationalities, and charisms. I found that...