- By Melannie Svoboda SND
I was ordering something online. I needed to spend about $10 more to get “free” shipping. So I checked out the books. That’s when I came across The Book of Delights by Ross Gay. I saw that it was a New York Times best seller, a National Book Award Finalist,
- By Melannie Svoboda SND
This is the story of a teacher, her junior high students, and the statue of our newest saint in the Catholic Church who will be canonized by Pope Leo on September 7. The teacher is Sister Frances Marie Penwell, a Sister of Notre Dame in Toledo, Ohio. Sister, a teacher
- By Melannie Svoboda SND
It’s no secret. Church membership has fallen significantly in the U.S. within the past 50 years or so. I am basing the information in today’s blog on three sources: recent Gallup Polls, Pew Research findings, and an article in the Spring 2025 issue of Notre Dame Magazine entitled “Out of
- By Melannie Svoboda SND
Some say the two most important questions we can ask in life are these: “Who is God?” And “What is God like?” These are questions we may ponder our entire life. To see how others have responded to one or both of these questions, I consulted my boxes of quotations
- By Melannie Svoboda SND
Today we are going to reflect on and pray for one of the major crises in our world today: refugees. In fact, some historians predict that this current century will go down in history as “The Century of Refugees.” We will begin with a few facts, then listen to a
- By Melannie Svoboda SND
When we pray for healing, we often pray for healing from physical illnesses of all kinds. But maybe we also need to ask for healing from attitudes and habits that can prevent our faith from being healthy and whole. Here is one such prayer I wrote recently. Perhaps you might
- By Melannie Svoboda SND
There’s an old saying, “God works the night shift.” This maxim made me wonder about all those people among us who work the night shift too. Do we know who they are? Do we appreciate what they do for us? Do we ever thank them or pray for them? Here
- By Melannie Svoboda SND
Two weeks ago I had the privilege of leading a retreat at Assisi Heights in Rochester, MN. Before going there, I was vagually aware that these Franciscan Sisters were somehow “connected” to the Mayo Clinic. But once I was on their beautiful grounds, their incredible story began to unfold for
- By Melannie Svoboda SND
June 2, 1914 was my father’s birthday. As a result, he’s always on my mind in early June. I think of him a lot in early August too, because he passed away on August 10, 2003 at the age of 89. I’m wondering: do you think about your deceased loved
- By Melannie Svoboda SND
On his 51st birthday, writer H. Jackson Brown decided to jot down some of the lessons he had learned during his lifetime. As the top of a sheet of paper, he wrote, “I’ve learned that…” and came up with 25 lessons. So enjoyable was this excerise, he soon asked others
