What in the World

The shout of “I see the steeples!” brings more than a silly adrenaline rush now; it brings the nostalgia of feeling entirely safe and known.

My home parish is located in a small town in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It wasn’t one that is obviously aesthetically beautiful. Its community life wasn’t notably stellar. Growing up, I would have never described myself as particularly attached. 

We assumed we would hold our heads over the font and he would trickle a little water over our heads. No. That’s not good enough.

To a three-year-old little boy, the “big church” is the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

While visiting her hometown of Little Rock, AR, my mom would often bring me back to her childhood church, St. Edward, which was inhabited by German immigrants in the late 1800s.

We still live near the chapel in which my wife accepted my proposal for marriage. There are layers of meaning in that place. This is often what we mean when we speak of “sacramentality,” there are layers of meaning kept between the body and soul.

This place, “The Port,” was often my place of refuge, a spot where I would seek the solitude and rest I was often looking for during my college years.

When I was a young girl, I remember listening to stories told by my uncle, Fr. Jim, about a place he called “The Archabbey.” In my mind, I tried to imagine what this particular place looked like. He described it as “a grand, holy, old church building with twin steeples rising to the sky.” As … Read more

The Basilica structure is simply more suited to our kind of worship than were the ancient temple structures.