Prayer & Reflection - December 17, 2024 - Today’s Gospel reading is the genealogy of Christ, just like at Christmas Eve Mass. If you’re anything like me, at this point we have heard this reading, well, about as many times as we are old, and it feels like there is nothing to gain from hearing the names again other than to test whether…

Story - September 17, 2018 - For 19 years, I worked for U.S. Government agencies and private businesses in Sao Tome and Cape Verde. In 2013, my family and I (six people) moved to Boston and were able to successfully adjust to life in the U.S. I had always worked in office settings, but in the U.S., due to sudden hardship…

Prayer & Reflection - December 5, 2024 - Both the Old Testament reading and the Gospel today give us strikingly similar images of cities and buildings crumbling and falling. Isaiah, true to form, calls to mind explicitly the poor among us. He even suggests that the cause of the city’s ruin is the neglect of the poor. The writer of Matthew’s Gospel issues…

Story - June 25, 2018 - In just one year, Carl felt like he lost everything. Several family members passed away, he lost his job, and the mother of his four children ended their relationship. That’s when his battle with alcoholism began. “I felt like I had no one to go to, so I turned to the bottle and hit rock…

Story - March 28, 2018 - Brittney Papike believes the Uplifting Parents Program helped her escape a life of poverty. Over the next five years, the University of Notre Dame’s Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) wants to test if Papike, a Rapid City single mom of two kids, is right. LEO will conduct a randomized controlled trial study to…

Story - January 12, 2018 - Caro and Esse have been matched since January of 2015 through T.E.A.M. (Together Engaging Adolescents through Mentoring), a program of Catholic Charities, Archdiocese of Boston. Esse is 12-year-old girl living in South Boston. She originally joined the program because many of her friends were in T.E.A.M. and told her that it was a lot of…

Story - January 12, 2018 - Fifty years will have passed this coming April 4 since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. As it is with most martyrs, Dr. King remains an influential person in the areas he championed, including racial and social justice, and more generally in what it means to serve one’s…

Story - August 2, 2017 - Being a Payee client was not always easy for Rose: “At first, I didn’t understand how the program worked. I was angry that someone else had control of my money because I didn’t feel like I was independent.” Rose’s feelings are normal for Payee clients. The Payee Program provides individualized financial management to those who…

Story - August 12, 2016 - “This work is personal for me. When I go to the airport, it’s hard not to see my family’s journey unfold in front of me. When I see refugees standing there with their light luggage, I know it’s the very beginning, and the sky is the limit. In some ways, I really worry about them,…

Story - May 6, 2016 - Carol started caring for her mother-in-law, Marie, who was nearly 90 years old and showing signs of dementia. Still, despite her short-term memory loss, Marie remained intelligent and eager for social engagement. “It was hard for me to keep her busy every day,” says Carol. Seeing a flyer for Day Break Cares adult day center,…

Story - September 3, 2015 - Ten years ago, hundreds of thousands of people fled New Orleans to escape Hurricane Katrina. Among them were an adoption specialist for Catholic Charities in New Orleans, one of the birthmothers she was working with, and the adoptive family the birthmother had just chosen for her baby. With phone lines down and no communication between…

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