January 8, 2021

Remembering Fr. Ubald (RIP 1/7/2021)

The first thing you’d notice was not his collar, but his smile. Despite the great sorrows he had experienced — or perhaps because of them — Fr. Ubald Rugirangoga was full of joy. I think that this joy was actually a source and sign of his healing gift, for both things emanated from the same place: an unshakable trust in the God who never failed him. Not when he lost first his father, then his brother and mother and dozens of members of his own family, in the genocide against the Tutsi people. Not when his own parishioners cast him out of the parish he […]
December 30, 2010

A Blessing for Not-So-Holy Families

It was like scratching an itch that had been building up for years. Then, the day before Christmas, the proverbial straw landed. Finally, this ol’ camel scratched in the form of a carefully worded e-mail. Ahhhh . . . camel crap. We’ve been shoveling it for days now, with no end in sight. Someday I’ll get around to sharing details, but for now I’ll summarize it this way: Nothing, not even righteous indignation, feels good enough to justify hurting someone you REALLY love. And sometimes even the most justified comeback can have consequences you never intended. In this case, the easy “Sorry” won’t work. You […]