Effie Caldarola Archives - Page 4 of 10

Effie Caldarola: Our wounds and our hope

05/11/2022 by Hawaii Catholic Herald

FOR THE JOURNEY A story about St. Teresa of Avila tells us that one day the devil appeared to her in the guise of Christ. Immediately, she dismissed him. You are not Christ, she told the devil. The devil was puzzled. How did you know I wasn’t Christ? Because, Teresa replied, you have no wounds. […]

Effie Caldarola: Easter offers hope

04/27/2022 by Hawaii Catholic Herald

FOR THE JOURNEY Like life itself, Lent starts out nice and slow. And suddenly, Easter is upon us. There may have been a Lenten midway point, or maybe as Holy Week began, we realized that Lent has sped by. We ask ourselves, Did I do enough? It’s human nature to feel like maybe we […]

Effie Caldarola: Lessons from Monte Cassino

03/02/2022 by Hawaii Catholic Herald

FOR THE JOURNEY The hairpin turns were gasp-inducing, especially to someone afraid of heights. As we climbed higher and higher, I alternated between covering my eyes and then peeking out at the remarkable landscape unfolding beneath the narrow Italian road that spiraled up toward the peak of Monte Cassino. I was on my way to […]

Effie Caldarola: Fishers of men

02/16/2022 by Hawaii Catholic Herald

FOR THE JOURNEY Best fishing story of January: A small group of fishermen and an Irish fishing association stopped the Russian navy from conducting war games in fertile fishing territory off Ireland’s coast. The little band of Irish fishermen vowed that they would continue to send up to 60 trawlers continually into the waters during […]

Effie Caldarola: Where were you, God?

02/02/2022 by Hawaii Catholic Herald

FOR THE JOURNEY On the morning of Jan. 5, a fire tore through a Philadelphia rowhouse that had been converted into apartments. Twelve people died, including nine children. Probably most Americans heard the news, then moved on to the next big story. Perhaps the situation on the Ukrainian border grabbed our attention, or the filibuster […]

Effie Caldarola: Studying our history

01/19/2022 by Hawaii Catholic Herald

FOR THE JOURNEY The book, “We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families,” is at once both stunning and horrifying. Searching for something to read, I picked up this 1998 bestseller at my daughter’s house. But I paused. Was the story of Rwandan genocide relevant or was it ancient […]

Effie Caldarola: Living in ambiguity

01/05/2022 by Hawaii Catholic Herald

FOR THE JOURNEY My husband and I are in the process of moving to the East Coast to be near our daughters and grandchildren. I say “process” because it’s harder to buy a house here than it was in Anchorage, Alaska, or Omaha, Nebraska, two cities where we’ve lived previously. Costs are higher here than […]

Effie Caldarola: Some good news

09/01/2021 by Hawaii Catholic Herald

FOR THE JOURNEY Ready for some good news? Who isn’t? Just a quick look at headlines during the past few days is sobering. With our first cup of coffee one morning, we learned about the murderous earthquake in Haiti. There’s the grim U.N. Climate Report. The Taliban has overtaken Kabul, Afghanistan, and the terror felt […]

Effie Caldarola: The face in the mirror

08/18/2021 by Hawaii Catholic Herald

FOR THE JOURNEY When my granddaughter Alice was just months old, she would lie on a blanket, surrounded by a plastic toy structure that had colorful objects hanging from it. When the structure was jiggled, things would twirl and rattle. But the best part, a plastic mirror, hung from the center so Alice could see […]

Effie Caldarola: Fire, drugs and greed

06/23/2021 by Hawaii Catholic Herald

FOR THE JOURNEY It may have been a discarded cigarette thrown into a rag bin. No matter how it started, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City in 1911 took only 18 shocking minutes but changed history. The factory employed mostly young immigrant women, who labored long hours in a sweatshop for poverty-level […]