Mary Novaria

My friend Marj posted a Facebook pic on Easter morning of her adorable daughter dressed up in a lovely, pink Easter dress. This sweet little girl was also wearing white gloves, which really took me back. They were a staple growing up. No special occasion church outfit was complete without white gloves and black patent leather Mary Janes worn with lace-trimmed anklets. One time my parents were out of town and my grandmother had come all the way from New England to stay with us. She didn’t drive so my mom had arranged for some friends to pick us up and take us all the church on Sunday. For Grammy, it would have been unthinkable to miss Sunday Mass. I thought I was all ready for church that morning when my grandmother asked me where my white gloves were. Shrug. I probably hadn’t worn them since the past Easter or Christmas or maybe even as far back as my first Holy Communion. But Grammy insisted. I riffled through my underwear drawer in search of gloves and couldn’...

Well, I guess it’s time to resurrect the old WWJD bracelets. Just when you think you’ve heard it all, news comes that a Roman Catholic parish in Minnesota has banned a 13-year-old autistic boy and his family from attending Mass. Reportedly the church fears the boy is a physical danger to others in the pew. There’s probably a lot of back story that we’ll never know, but on the surface this looks like a blatant, patently un-Christian move on the part of the church’s “pastor.” Yea, I use the term loosely, as a true pastor looks after his (and in other denominations, her) sheep, making sure they are not expelled from the flock. Literally for Christ’s sake, how many times in the New Testament do people bring afflicted friends and family members to Jesus for healing? Palsy, demons, leprosy… Jesus was often the one person who was not appalled or disgusted by the sick. And when queried by the Pharisees for dining with objectionable members of society, Jesus quipped: “It is not the healthy that...