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The Psalm we pray today on St. Monica's feast whispers the thing she must have clung to for decades: where can I flee from your presence? If I sink to the nether world, you are present there. St. Monica knew the nether world. She watched her son Augustine sink into it, the Manichees, the concubines, the restless wandering, and she followed him, not to rescue him, because she couldn't, but because she refused to pray from a distance. She followed him from North Africa to Rome

The first reading places us in the middle of ordinary worship, people fasting, praying, going about the rhythms of community life, when the Holy Spirit interrupts with a name. Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Not a thunderclap. Just a voice, rising out of silence, claiming two particular people for a particular work. St. Catherine of Siena knew something about that kind of interruption. She didn't seek power. She sought only to disa

Not being raised Catholic, my understanding of saints was murky at best. I knew they were people whose lives honored God, whose faith...