FAITH AT HOME How often do you think about how small you are? Not your size or shape, but the fact that you were once tinier than the period at the end of this sentence. Or the truth that you are one of almost 8 billion people on the planet today. Or the mind-boggling statistic […]
Laura Kelly Fanucci: A Christmas without?
FAITH AT HOME Flip back through photos and you’ll see how different Christmas will look this year. No Nativity pageant at church. No Christmas concert at school. No company parties. No visits to Santa. No family reunions. With five kids at home, I’ve been hearing a lot of wishing for last year or hoping for […]
Laura Kelly Fanucci: Love, even around the family table
FAITH AT HOME Religion and politics. The two subjects you’re supposed to avoid in polite conversation. Except that the holiday season is when faith and family collide. Feasts like Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s bring moments ripe for conversation with relatives — for better or for worse. What can we do when talking about our […]
Laura Kelly Fanucci: Sharpen your pencils for the school of love
FAITH AT HOME Did you know the family is a school of love? The Second Vatican Council declared this teaching, St. John Paul II deepened it and Pope Francis affirmed it. Our Catechism of the Catholic Church spells it out clearly: The family is “a community of grace and prayer, a school of human virtues […]
Laura Kelly Fanucci: Food for the journey
FAITH AT HOME “Bring double the snacks. Leave half the clothes.” When I was a brand-new mother, preparing to bring our first baby on his first plane ride, a wise friend with older kids shared her advice for packing for family vacations. I stared down at the tower of onesies I’d folded, next to one […]
Laura Kelly Fanucci: Ten pockets of prayer
FAITH AT HOME January dawns, fresh and clean. The beginning of a new year. Although Advent is technically our new year in the church, January offers another jump-start — a chance to change and a renewed resolve to eat better, exercise more or waste less time online. Making time for prayer is a common resolution. […]
Laura Kelly Fanucci: Good news for crowded churches
FAITH AT HOME Quick reminder for those of us who attend Mass regularly. Many people who don’t normally come to church joined us on Dec. 24 and 25. They took our parking spots and our usual pews. What fantastic news! More people crowding in the doors? Not enough chairs to drag up from the basement? […]
Laura Kelly Fanucci: A month to pray, respect, remember
FAITH AT HOME What surprised me most was not that she had carried her grief quietly for half a century. Not that she could tell me exactly how old her babies would be today. Not that her bright eyes brimmed with tears as she shared her story with a stranger. What shocked me was […]
Sex abuse crisis: Laura Kelly Fanucci | When hard conversations have to happen
FAITH AT HOME “I wish we didn’t have to talk about this.” What parent hasn’t thought or uttered these words, taking a deep breath before jumping into a hard conversation with their child? Whether a crisis at home, a conflict at school or an atrocity in the news, tough subjects are unavoidable in families. The […]
Laura Kelly Fanucci: How to honor fathers with love
FAITH AT HOME Beer. Golf. TV. Mowing. Burping. Fishing. According to greeting cards in the store aisles, this is all that modern fathers care about. Father’s Day is clogged with lowbrow stereotypes. Dad just wants to hog the remote control, crack a few crass jokes and drink a cold one. He’s not nurturing, caring or […]
