I typed the last word.

After years of research and writing, Santa María: Priestly Mother of Mercy is complete—now it just has to get past the series editors. The book explores...

I love the month of August. It begins with the Feast of the Pardon in honor of Santa Maria degli Angeli, patroness of the Franciscan famiglia, and moves through various saints like San Lorenzo, Santo Domingo, Santa Rosa de Lima, San Agustín and his mother Mónica. It also celebrates the birth of significant people in my life like Brat Joachim, Brat Juraj, Frate Graziano, Friar Jimmy. mi sobrinita Emma, mis padres Gilberto y Emma, mi cuñada Norma, mis primas Juanita y Linda, and ends with el...

As the feast of the Portiuncula approaches each August 2, I find myself returning to the small chapel where Francis first gathered his brothers and where Clare stepped into the life of the Gospel. This year, I want to bring that memory home — not to Assisi, not to a congress hall, but to the cotidiano: the ordinary, unremarkable ground where most of us actually live our faith. What does a thirteenth‑century friar’s walk into a Sultan’s camp, or a papal gathering of religious leaders, have to...

Pietro di Bernardone was a prosperous cloth merchant in the Umbrian commune of Assisi. Proud of his commercial success, he traveled frequently to France in search of the finest textiles for his business. Like many merchants of the emerging merchant class, he trained his sons in the skills necessary for economic advancement: negotiation, accounting, and fluency in French. Despite his wealth, however, Pietro lacked one thing that money could not secure. He belonged to the minores, the merchant...