Our country has endured a devastating pandemic that has claimed some 230,000 lives, lingering social and racial unrest, hurricanes, wildfires, and a brutal election season that proved how divided our country is. Simply put: 2020 belongs squarely in our rearview mirror.

But we’re still thankful. As an organization, we at Franciscan Media are grateful for the leadership and charism of our friars. As a magazine, we are grateful for you, our readers, who support our mission. As an individual, I’m grateful for my friends, family, and colleagues.

I would also like to take a moment to thank the writers who contributed to this issue: Katie Rutter, an intrepid journalist, who wrote this month’s cover story; photographer/writer Richard Bauman, who brought us to the Shrine to St. Frances Cabrini; longtime contributor Rita E. Piro, who interviewed renowned chef Mary Ann Esposito; and Melanie Rigney, whose book Radical Saints: 21 Women for the 21st Century, published by Franciscan Media, we adapted in this issue.

It’s been a grueling year. Perhaps this line from Psalm 69 says it best: “But here I am miserable and in pain; let your saving help protect me, God, that I may praise God’s name in song and glorify it with thanksgiving.”

I have a friend who was having a difficult time deciding whom to vote for. He is Catholic and strongly opposes abortion. But he also strongly opposes the death penalty, the policy of separating children from their parents at the border, and the continual destruction of God’s awesome and wondrous creation.

A Nation Divided

After the 2016 election, there was a lot of talk about how divided we are as a nation. This concept is not new or unique to current times. In the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush campaigned on the idea that, if elected, he would be “a uniter, not a divider.” He also coined the expression compassionate conservative. This idea suggested that caring for the poor and marginalized, protecting our environment, and overcoming racism were important and even tantamount to who we are as a nation. We just needed to rethink how to do that.

Senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch could disagree on how to build a better society and still remain friends. They often worked together and reached a compromise on issues. At least on the surface, it appeared that our leaders could strongly disagree on policy while maintaining civility. While there was always a certain amount of vitriol thrown about by both sides, especially during campaigns, it seemed that the adults in the room would at least attempt to restore a semblance of civility.

The 2016 election did not create the divisiveness—it was always there. But it felt different after that election; the divisiveness was much more out in the open. Families were split apart. Poll after poll showed how divided we were. After the 2016 election, people wrote articles about how we can come together. In one such article published in Reuters, author Jason Szep stated: “There was no comparative polling data from previous elections. But interviews with relationship counselors and voters suggest this election stood out by summoning passions, anger, and a divisiveness in ways that will make healing difficult.”

Experts talked about how we can come together. Some even suggested setting ground rules and a list of acceptable topics for discussion at Thanksgiving dinner. Imagine having to set up a list of rules and topics not allowed just to have a peaceful Thanksgiving.

What happened that our nation and our faith have become so divided? In the late 1960s—another time of division—Dr. Thomas Harris wrote I’m OK—You’re OK. It was described as “a practical guide to transactional analysis as a method for solving problems in life.” The title became a catchy phrase that folks would often use to simplify their feelings. It caught on, and many variations spawned from it. The phrase that might best describe how some feel about each other in today’s society is, “I’m right—you’re evil.”

Now we are ending another election cycle. A key component of our faith is to stop and take some time to examine our conscience. We think of this as more of an individual examination: What sins did I commit? But we often fail to address the role we played in societal sin. The Jesuits practice a daily Examen, a method to detect God’s presence and discern his direction for us. The Examen is an ancient practice in the Church that can help us see God’s hand at work in our whole experience.

Turning Back to God

No matter who wins the election on November 3, many of us will wake up and be angry. Anger itself is not wrong. Jesus sometimes got angry. Anger against injustice is righteous anger. But anger left unchecked will turn into hatred and fear. We need to take our righteous anger and turn it into prayerful action. Psalm 30:5 tells us, “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” But the joy will never come if we are filled with fear and hatred.

How do we overcome bitterness and anger? How do we start to heal? St. Clare of Assisi challenges us to become a mirror of Christ for others to see and follow. She tells us to reflect Christ in our lives, to help build up the body of Christ through transformation in love. Ilia Delio says in her book Clare of Assisi: A Heart Full of Love: “Be yourself and allow God to dwell within you. Christ will then be alive, and the world will be created anew.”

St. John of the Cross taught us that human desire is unlimited. The heart of a human being is not satisfied with anything less than Infinity—God himself. Our deepest human desire is a desire for God. When we turn away from God, we no longer consider God’s creation and all that it encompasses as sacred. Then our unlimited human desire for God expresses itself in materialism and consumerism.

We have lost our connection to God. Our national divide centers on the unhealthy emphasis on the self. We have stopped, as St. Clare suggested, “being an imitation of Christ” and acting based on the common good. We have come to define ourselves not by whom we love but by whom we fear and hate.

We are called not only to change ourselves but also to be agents of change in the larger community. On the morning after the 2016 election Pope Francis tweeted, “May we make God’s merciful love ever more evident in our world through dialogue, mutual acceptance, and fraternal cooperation.” Perhaps we should all copy Pope Francis’ words and place them by our bedside. Then, when we awake on the morning of November 4, we can take a moment, read and reflect on Psalm 30 and Pope Francis’ words, and start being Christ to others.

Nuns and millennials: How much could they have in common? Quite a lot, as it turns out.

It was a meeting of kindred spirits. Never mind the four decades separating them in age, difference in faith, or even taste in clothing. When Sister Ann VonderMeulen, OSF, walked into the coffee shop on March 11, 2020, Megan Trischler and Anjali Dutt greeted her with warm words and even warmer hugs.

Trischler, a 33-year-old with a trendy pixie cut and a bright smile, moved her tote bag so that Sister Ann could sit next to her. Dutt, also 33, with thick-rimmed glasses and dark hair that reached past her shoulders, was already situated opposite. Sister Ann, 71, a Sister of St. Francis of Oldenburg, Indiana, wearing a palette of warm oranges and browns, settled down beside the millennials as comfortably as if she were at home.

These three, with the addition of one more Franciscan sister, are the core of an unlikely group that meets monthly in the College Hill neighborhood of Cincinnati. They are just one branch of a national movement called “Nuns & Nones,” where millennials and religious sisters come together in community.

“I think what has maybe surprised me is that I feel like we have friends on the journey,” says Trischler, diving into deeper reflection with a speed that shows her comfort around her companions.

“It’s just a space to be together, and to hold those questions of ‘How do we live with the pain and the joy of the world?’ I don’t know. But let’s do it together.”

Seekers Across the Country

Officially, the national movement is referred to as “Nuns & Nones,” though some local groups have opted to call themselves “Sisters & Seekers. ” But the concept remains the same: bringing together progressive young adults and women religious.

On a surface level, the two groups—nuns and nones—may seem too different to have even a brief conversation. The “nuns, ” technically a term for cloistered women religious but that colloquially refers to active congregations as well, have a faith conviction so strong that they have dedicated their lives to God. They also tend to be from the baby boomer or silent generations. According to the National Religious Retirement Office, over three-quarters of the religious sisters in the United States are over the age of 70.

The “nones” are those who would check the “none” box on a survey about religious affiliation, which would be about three in 10 millennials, according to statistics from the Pew Research Center. They also tend to be a progressive group, deeply integrated with the digital world. But not all the members of Nuns & Nones are technically “nones”: Many are associated with a religion, but very few are Catholic and even fewer would have ever expected to find friends in women religious.

“We’ve had Buddhists, lapsed and practicing Catholics, Muslims, women seeking ordination, Christians of all sorts, United Universalists, Jews, atheists, pagans, seekers, mystics,” says Adam Horowitz, one of the national organizers, in his blog. “We’ve had first-generation immigrants, white folks, people of color, queer folks, trans folks.”

Despite the differences, local groups of Nuns & Nones now meet regularly in 12 different locations across the country. Groups are already running or gearing up in Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, and Philadelphia, among others. Some meet monthly for a few hours of discussion. Others get together for overnight retreat-like experiences. In one case, several millennials decided to live in a convent for six months.

“Seekers go to make meaning in the social justice movements that they’re part of, communities that they’re helping to build, increasingly less in religious spaces,” says Brittany Koteles, using the group’s alternative term for “nones.” Koteles is the national codirector of Nuns & Nones and helps coordinate a local meeting in Washington, DC.

“But in the places where we go to make a difference, it’s there that we’re also trying to make meaning,” she says.

Soul Mates

The magnetic forces that seem to invisibly draw these two polar opposites together are social justice and the drive to make a difference. Shared values bridge age and philosophy and have become the glue holding the nuns and nones together.

Sisters have founded and staffed hospitals across the United States; millennials tweet and brainstorm about sustainable health care. The young hold walkouts and lobby to raise awareness about climate change; sisters have been concerned about “Sister Mother Earth” since the days of Sts. Francis and Clare. Women religious have lived and worked in slums and the inner city; nones are deeply concerned about racial inequality and the systems that create poverty.

As one sister expressed at the very first Nuns & Nones meeting: “We have so much more in common here than could ever divide us.”

In the Cincinnati group, the overlaps in activism and passions are apparent. Trischler has spent the beginning of her career working in community development and helping nonprofits design processes, projects, and resources to build up their neighborhoods. Dutt volunteered for AmeriCorps and currently works as a community psychologist trying to create more civic engagement opportunities for refugees and immigrants in Cincinnati.

Sister Ann was a missionary for 12 years in Papua New Guinea, where the Oldenburg nuns taught and established a sister community. She now teaches special education, including helping refugees learn English. Sister Donna Graham, also a Sister of St. Francis of Oldenburg and the fourth member of the Cincinnati Nuns & Nones, has a long list of professions: teaching, campus ministry, community mental health, representing Franciscan friars as the director of their justice and peace office, and caring for members of a senior living community.

Sister Donna says millennials have “values around what’s right and what isn’t and what needs to get changed in our society, and they see sisters as having a history of being active in various social injustice concerns.”

For the sisters, finding their own passion for social justice reflected in the eyes of the young is a blessing beyond words. Congregations are retiring from ministry en masse, leaving the hospitals, schools, and charities they have nurtured for centuries. Now they are finally meeting those who have picked up the torch.

“These folks are committed to a lot of the same things we are in terms of social justice and looking out for those who have much less than we do, ” says Sister Ann. “Especially as our communities age, it gives me a lot of hope.”

Sister Donna agrees: “It certainly gives me a ton of hope about the future as I watch how these women are going about their lives and basically trying to make the world better in their own particular way.”

Finding a Safe Space

As any sister could attest, however, a lifelong commitment to social justice is no easy journey. Millennials, now young adults, are just beginning to experience the exhaustion and burnout that come from “making a difference” and pushing back against systems much bigger than they are.

“I think we often underestimate just how hard it is to live a life that’s really aligned with our values in a world in which it’s so easy to passively participate in a mainstream culture that hurts people,” explains Koteles.

These young adults also have the added stressors of a digital existence. The echo chambers of social media lead people to seek only those with similar values and engage in a perpetual shouting match with those who disagree. The anonymity of hiding behind a profile picture makes it easy to discredit and demonize the other—or to be demonized yourself.

“I overthink what I’m going to say, to make sure that this is politically acceptable, based on what a person in my position should be saying,” Dutt says.

“We’re so concerned about being right that we forget to be just right with one another,” says Trischler.

Both have found in Nuns & Nones an unusual safe space, a place where they can express their thoughts and ask honest questions without fear of backlash. Trischler explains: “What I sense in this group is you don’t have to believe what I believe. And I also trust that you’re still going to see me as a human.”

“I’ve been impressed by the depth of sharing and the trust and the holding in confidence,” adds Sister Ann. “I think people feel so comfortable there that they know whatever they share is not going to be used against them or in any way detract from who they are. They’re going to be accepted as they are.”

The Cincinnati group says that when two members disagree, “there is room for it.” Their meetings last about two hours, with nothing but a simple phrase or question to kick off the discussion. The rest of the time is spent unpacking that thought: a method with obvious similarities to contemplation practiced by sisters, but often unheard-of by the younger generation limited to the 280 characters allowed by Twitter.

“In my experiences where stuff starts to go awry, it’s because there’s not space for us even to personally ask, How did that make me feel? What am I feeling right now? Is that anger bubbling up in me? Is that sadness bubbling up in me? Do I feel a peace? Why do I feel peace?” explains Trischler.

Koteles, the national codirector, recognizes the void experienced when there is no space for contemplation and reflection. She says, “The people holding some of the hardest work . . . are hungry to talk about the spiritual side of that, the human implications of that kind of work, the big questions that arise.

Community Commitment

Perhaps the biggest lesson the sisters are teaching the millennials is too large to be easily seen—the gift of community. Sisters have always lived together, uniting their efforts to move mountains much bigger than themselves.

“I don’t actually think it’s possible to be our most courageous selves if we’re not in community. We need people that are supporting us, affirming us, holding us accountable, ” explains Koteles. “In sisters’ cases, they have communities that have each other’s backs financially, that are investing in their education and training, that are in shared spiritual practice together so that when times get hard they have a life of habit and prayer to fall back on.”

The recognition of the need for community is at the very origins of Nuns & Nones. Horowitz, who is Jewish, says that in 2016 he was brainstorming with a community minister “the kind of social, communal, and spiritual infrastructure needed for welcome, refuge, and belonging in the 21st century.”

Wayne Muller, the minister, pointed to women religious as a model. That revelation launched Horowitz on the journey that would eventually lead to him staying at a convent—the Dominican Motherhouse in Fremont, California—for six months.

“Sister Gloria Marie Jones explained to me the four organizing principles of her community: study, prayer, shared life (community), and ministry (work in the world), ” Horowitz reflected in his blog about his stay. “This elegant simplicity was a welcome offering and resonated on a deep, intuitive level. I, too, was looking for a life of learning, contemplation, community, and healing work in the world.”

Last November, several millennials from the Cincinnati Nuns & Nones decided to make their own weekend pilgrimage to the motherhouse of the Oldenburg sisters in Indiana. The community that Sister Donna and Sister Ann call home began, and is still rooted, in that tiny town of fewer than 700 people.

The young people found a sprawling convent rising in several spires above the landscape, a testament to nearly 170 years of communal living and activism. Long corridors connect the sisters’ living spaces to a still-active academy founded in 1852, a reminder that this order started schools in Kentucky, Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, and Kansas. Glass cases proudly display artifacts from the sisters’ missionary work among Native Americans in New Mexico and Arizona, and among the poor in China and Papua New Guinea. The sisters who live at the motherhouse, most of whom are retired, still gather for communal meals in a bright, wood-floored dining hall adorned with old paintings and a massive crucifix.

“We went on a tour of the convent and got to hear so many stories about changes that had happened in the convent—buildings being built, rooms being appropriated for new purposes as community needs changed or emerged, as well as memories about things that took place in a certain spot,” says Dutt.

“Even though we weren’t really talking about that exact question explicitly [how to live], hearing several sisters’ life stories and all of us collectively talking about how to navigate challenges of life brought me to think about that question a lot,” she says.

The organizers of Nuns & Nones wrestle with exactly how, as progressives in the 21st century, they can build committed communities like the one that has supported the sisters in their herculean task of making the world a better place. But building community with the nuns seems a good place to start.

A Space to Be and to Do

“I thought we were going to do something,” Dutt says. Sitting together in the coffee shop, their mugs pushed aside, the Cincinnati group is talking about its origins and the pleasant surprise of finding friends in one another.

“But the answer from the group was, ‘Well, maybe we don’t need another space to do something,’ ” she continues, “and that was so eye-opening and powerful for me, to be like, everyone is right. We don’t need to do something; we need to be here for each other.”

Together, the group was slowly coming to the conclusion that community is necessary for action. Without the buoying force of committed community, actions made alone are too small to stir the waters of change, as a pebble thrown into a pond is overwhelmed as it makes the tiniest ripple.

Trischler began to hope that she could find more spaces, like this one, where she could just be loved and strengthened. “What if we approached our spaces more as, we’re here to be human and find friends? Maybe that’s na√Øve, but isn’t that the call, to love our neighbors?” she asks.

“And that’s what strengthens us for action,” adds Sister Ann.

As they walk back to their cars, the three women talk about their next meeting. They pass restaurants and college students, most of whom are looking down into the little devices in their hands.

Trischler shares the idea to incorporate art into their next meeting. Sister Ann and Dutt agree and offer suggestions.

It seems, though, that art is already present: the art of being together.

Mary Ann Esposito draws on all three of these ingredients as she shares Italian culture and recipes on Ciao Italia, the nation’s longest-running cooking show.

At first glance, Durham, New Hampshire, may seem an unlikely setting for an Italian cooking show. While New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts are known for their large Italian neighborhoods, America’s Granite State has far fewer such areas. Yet it is from this New England town that chef and food historian Mary Ann Esposito hosts Ciao Italia, the longest-running cooking show on US television.

Each week, more than 5 million viewers tune in as Mary Ann imparts lessons not only in Italian cooking, but also in Italian history and civilization. “Ciao Italia has always been a show devoted to not just food but culture as well, and viewers like this concept,” explains Mary Ann. Her loving memories of growing up in a large Italian American family punctuate almost every episode. Included among them are the many traditions of her family’s Catholic faith that are a part not only of Mary Ann’s life experience, but of her recipes as well.

Broadcast by PBS since 1989, Ciao Italia was born of a suggestion by Mary Ann’s husband, Dr. Gaetano (Guy) Esposito. “One day I was typing up some recipes,” explains Mary Ann, “and Guy said I should put them together for a show on our local cable.” Not expecting much, she sent a proposal to the general manager of the local public television station who initially declined, but later reconsidered when the station sought to expand its programming.

Twenty-nine seasons, 13 cookbooks, and nearly 700 episodes later, both Ciao Italia and its founder and host are considered synonymous with authentic regional Italian cooking. The secret ingredients to the show’s huge success? “My mother and grandmothers are at the heart of Ciao Italia,” she says with affection, “and I try to keep them alive through the recipes and stories on the show and in the books.”

Though she was born and raised in a suburb of Buffalo, New York, the roots of both sides of Mary Ann’s family are firmly planted in Italy. Paternal grandmother “Nonna” Maria Saporito emigrated to Rochester, New York, from Caltanissetta in the central part of Sicily, while “Nonna” Anna Galasso came to Buffalo from Bellizzi, near Naples. Nonna Saporito owned a butcher shop in Fairport, New York, where her granddaughter would spend school vacations helping out. Nonna Galasso shared a home with her daughter Louisa and her son-in-law Roy (Mary Ann’s parents) and their five sons and two daughters. Remembers Mary Ann, “We lived in a big house in an Italian American neighborhood surrounded not only by family, but by friends whose families had also settled in the area after leaving Italy.”

As she grew up in a traditional Italian Catholic family, faith played as much of a role in daily life as did family and food. Mary Ann has “lots of fond memories of loving Catholic school, with nuns and more nuns” at St. Mary’s in Lancaster, New York, part of St. Mary’s Parish, where her family worshipped and received the sacraments. She remembers many family Baptisms, first Communions, Confirmations, and weddings, featuring “lots of picture taking and parties to commemorate each occasion. Sunday was a big family dinner day with all the relatives after Mass,” recalls Mary Ann. “That’s a memory that has stayed with me all my life.”

Her family’s strong devotion to the Blessed Mother included recitation of the rosary every evening, as well as daily Mass, lighting candles, and lots of prayer. “There were statues of saints everywhere, and our family’s patrons were St. Lucy and St. Anthony,” says Mary Ann. “Every morning, rain or shine, Grandma Galasso would get up early and walk the mile or so to attend Mass at Our Lady of Pompeii Church. On Saturdays, I would often go with her. She always sat in the first pew and read from a fragile, thumb-smudged Italian prayer book.”

In her first companion book to Ciao Italia, Mary Ann describes her family’s special celebration of St. Joseph: “Of all the saints’ feast days, none was more sacred in our home than St. Joseph’s Day. After attending Mass, my grandmothers would get to work making the food for the table to honor San Giuseppe. A solemn statue of St. Joseph stood on the best lace tablecloth in the center of the dining room table. Around him were plates of food, flowers, and candles. There were breads of many sizes and shapes, but what I really looked forward to were the sfinci, fried puffs of dough. [For the recipe, visit CiaoItalia.com.] They were mounded on large decorative trays and brought to the table. I would reach for the sfinci, only to get a tap on the wrist from Grandma to remind me that we pray first, then eat.”

Mary Ann spent countless hours with her mother and grandmothers, helping to make bread, can vegetables and fruits, and prepare meals. Her earliest memory of cooking was helping to make maccheroni, known in today’s parlance as pasta. “When I was a kid, old broom handles propped between kitchen chairs, holding rows of golden yellow pasta in various shapes and sizes, were a familiar sight. Homemade spaghetti, fettuccine, and lasagna sheets were staples in my house.” Another clear memory involves her mother and grandmother baking bread. Despite the absence of high-powered mixers, blenders, and other utensils, Nonna Galasso or Mamma made bread daily, upwards of 20 loaves a week, even during the summer.

It was at St. Mary’s High School in Lancaster that Mary Ann met her future husband, Guy, who followed a path in medicine as an orthopedic surgeon. After graduation, Mary Ann continued on to what was then Rosary Hill College, now known as Daemen College, in Amherst, New York, where she completed a degree in education. Mary Ann and Guy were married in 1968 at St. Mary’s Catholic Church back in Lancaster. Their reception featured many homemade foods, including pyramid displays of Italian cookies and a wedding cake—both made by Mamma Louisa. After they married, Mary Ann taught high school for a few years before dedicating herself full-time to the care of her daughter, Beth, and son, Christopher.

It was during the couple’s first trip to Italy in 1980 when Mary Ann took an actual cooking class, realizing that years spent watching and working with her mother and grandmothers had already exposed her to much more than the teacher was offering. She turned her attention to Italian regional cooking, traveling to Italy twice a year to research, study, and test foods representative of the 20 regions of Italy. Back home in Durham, Mary Ann took courses at the University of New Hampshire in history, food history, and Italian, completing a master’s in history in 1991.

As Ciao Italia grew in popularity, producers took Mary Ann out of the kitchen and into the actual towns, villages, farms, markets, purveyors, and manufacturers of the foods and ingredients featured in her show. This real-life setting greatly increased the authentic regional aspect of the show. With Mary Ann as their guide, viewers have been treated to a unique combination of culinary and cultural adventures in all 20 regions of Italy. “And I love them all!” Mary Ann insists emphatically.

Mary Ann has welcomed many special guests to share her Ciao Italia kitchen, but none more special than Louisa Saporito, her beloved mother. Before she passed away in 2008, Louisa appeared on several of Mary Ann’s shows to demonstrate some of her family recipes right in her own basement kitchen in Buffalo. A reflection of the generation in which she was raised, Louisa devoted her life to her home, her husband, and their seven children, as well as to the care of her mother, the beloved Nonna Galasso. After raising her children, Louisa returned to school while in her 50s, becoming a dietician.

The freshest, highest quality ingredients are the key to incredible recipes, insists Mary Ann, and she is lucky to have those literally at her doorstep. Guy Esposito is, in his wife’s words, “an incredible gardener” and has been since his college days at the University of Rochester.

With the passing of the years, Guy’s garden grew exponentially, and he is now able to boast of a garden with more than 100 plants. While he has been an orthopedic surgeon for more than 50 years, Guy is happy to be known as “The Vegetable Garden Doctor,” able to take any garden from seeds to sprouts to saplings and to storage for his wife’s use in the Ciao Italia kitchen.

Her television series and cookbooks are not the only means through which Mary Ann connects with fans. She has enthusiastically embraced social media, the Internet, and video streaming to teach her worldwide classroom. The Ciao Italia website features nearly 2,000 recipes, instructional videos, commentaries, cultural facts, personal stories, and more. Mary Ann posts on Facebook at least once a day and personally answers questions submitted from her more than 35,000 followers. Instagram and Twitter accounts are filled with photos, recipes, and tips.

Now entering its 30th season, Ciao Italia is still growing in popularity and recognition. While the first 26 seasons were filmed in a studio kitchen, the past three seasons have been broadcast right from Mary Ann’s home kitchen in Durham. Over the course of almost two weeks each August, producers, directors, camera techs, and others descend upon the Esposito home and film approximately 20 episodes.

More trips are being planned, more special shows orga-nized, and personal appearances arranged. Yet Mary Ann eschews any status as a cooking icon, preferring instead to be considered a teacher. “I started out as a teacher,” she says. “And I really haven’t moved from that profession, but now I have 5 million students.”

Food for the Soul: Celebrating Saints and Feast Days

December 13 | Santa Lucia or St. Lucy

Lucy brought food and aid to persecuted Christians hiding in the Roman catacombs as a display of gratitude for the miraculous healing of her mother. She would make her way through the dark tunnels of the underground, wearing a candlelit wreath on her head to light her way, which left her hands free to carry as much food as possible. After refusing a marriage contract, Lucy was exposed as a Christian. Her punishment consisted of several cruelties, the most famous of which was the gouging out of her eyes. For this she became the patron saint of eye-related illness and vision problems. In religious art and statuary, she is always depicted holding her eyes on a plate.

St. Lucy enjoys much veneration in Sicily, where it is said that prayers to her during a famine miraculously brought three ships filled with wheat to the harbor of Siracusa on her feast day. Grateful residents chanted prayers of thanksgiving to St. Lucy as they unloaded the food. So hungry were Siracusa’s citizens that they did not bother to grind the wheat, opting instead to boil the whole grains in water to eat as quickly as possible.

Still today, in Sicily, it is the custom to eat whole grains instead of bread and pasta on December 13 in honor of Santa Lucia. The traditional thick porridge of boiled wheat is called cuccia and is often mixed with ricotta cheese, berries, fruits, sugar, honey, or vegetables. On her feast day, a silver statue of St. Lucy containing her relics is paraded through the streets before returning to the Cathedral of Siracusa.

The tradition of Babbo Natale, as Santa Claus is known in Italian, did not arrive in Italy until the 1960s, but the tradition of Santa Lucia as the great gift-giver for children is centuries old. On the evening before the feast of Santa Lucia, children would leave the main window of their home open so that she could enter and leave toys and treats for them. Santa Lucia would ride through the night sky on her donkey, for whom the children would leave water and hay outside the window. Of course, Santa Lucia could not see in the dark of night, but that was not a problem as God had gifted her donkey with the ability to see where they were going. Children were warned that it was useless to try to sneak a glimpse of Santa Lucia because if she sensed anyone trying to look for her, she would blow ash into their eyes so that they could not see until she was gone.

The next day, as the children played with their new toys, they would enjoy the special cookies in honor of Santa Lucia called occhi di Santa Lucia, or “St. Lucy’s eyes.”

I now make a similar request regarding “cute” saints, those who have become so familiar and domesticated that they risk losing their ability to foster our conversion. Although Sts. Thérèse of Lisieux and Francis of Assisi may be the most popular “cute” saints today, that attitude would shock them and severely distorts what you would want us to take from the virtues they so generously enfleshed.

The Fault Is Ours, Not Yours

You, of course, never created “cute” saints. We did, as a subtle way of running interference, of shielding ourselves from the radical conversion that every saint (well-known or the “next-door” ones) should foster in us.

“Cute” saints promote complacency, not conversion. “Cute” has a built-in distance. Someone might find a kitten on a piano keyboard cute, of course, but that image suggests to those who love it that all’s right with the world and that the person does not need to make any significant changes. All’s right with the world, not because of cute kittens but because you are always trying to help us live in your divine image.

Because we all need a rest every now and then, “cute” isn’t all bad, but this way of looking at saints hides the wideness of your mercy and your grace so that our conversion to your ways keeps going ever deeper. “Cute” also has other dangers—in politics, finances, and all other aspects of life—because it refuses to ask tough questions and gives evasive answers a pass. “Cute” is a factor in many financial offers that sound too good to be true and probably, in fact, are scams.

Politicians sometimes give their opponents “cute” but derogatory nicknames in order to divert attention from important differences between their positions on key issues.

All Saints Are Prophets

Loving God, you inspired the author of the Book of Wisdom to write: “Although she [wisdom] is one, she can do all things, and she renews everything while herself perduring; passing into holy souls from age to age, she produces friends of God and prophets” (7:27).

“Friends of God” and “prophets” are not separate groups but rather a single group: Your friends always point people to you. That’s also what all prophets do: They speak for you and point people to your invigorating grace. “Cute” saints ultimately dull our souls, creating more distance between us and you. Prophets, however, always say things that make some people feel uncomfortable. Over the centuries, many people have dismissed prophets as idealists and presented themselves as the only genuine realists.

Were the harshest critics of Isaiah and Jeremiah more realistic than those prophets? Hardly! Genuine saints never seek publicity because they know their conversion is not yet complete—or they are still tempted to resist your grace by trying to improve upon your ways.

‘Not Dismissed So Easily’

Venerable Dorothy Day once said with irritation: “Don’t call me a saint! I don’t want to be dismissed so easily.” Dorothy Day had a strong devotion to Sts. Thérèse of Lisieux and Francis of Assisi, not because they were “cute,” but because they showed what happens when people cooperate generously with your grace. Saintly people move us to respect the dignity of every person because she or he has been created in your divine image.

Your Church may some day recognize Dorothy Day as a saint—but certainly not because she was “cute.” She drew people closer to you, especially by working with people at the extreme margins of society. St. Oscar Romero was not being “cute” when, shortly before he was martyred, he told Salvadoran soldiers not to fire upon innocent civilians. Speaking truth to power is always dangerous, but it is never a waste of time or energy.

In October, we celebrate the feasts of Teresa of Avila, Thérèse of Lisieux, Francis of Assisi, and many other saints. We begin the following month by celebrating the feast of All Saints, acknowledging the many people from all times, places, occupations, and social conditions who, with a laser focus, point us to you.

Help us not to blur that focus by making any of them “cute” as a feeble defense against your powerful grace.

That sound—the sound of my children—would terrify me.

Fear grabbed me fast and gripped me hard. Whatever I was doing a moment before was lost, and the insistence of it became the whole of my mind. I would hear the laughter build, and it would be like the flipping of a light switch. A click, and suddenly I was flooded and spilling over. I was angry. I was insistent. I was shouting into the distance of the rooms around me, “Quiet! I want quiet!”

It occurred to my wife, Kira, that this might not be how it appeared. Something was happening, and it kept happening. That was clear. Though it erupted in the wake of the laughter, my response didn’t seem “right-sized” to the laughter. The stimulus did not seem to match the outcome.

The Old Things 

“Maybe it’s old,” she said. “It’s here, but maybe it’s not from here.”

My wife understands old things. When Kira suggested that the anger “was not from here,” I knew what she meant. She meant that it was part of the buried gnarl of thorns that I carry with me from my own childhood. 

I agreed, but I did not know what to do. The fear was a flood, and its presence was immediate. The anger that followed from the fear was also immediate. The kids were scared of it, and so was I. My demand for quiet and my reaction to their laughter were a growing problem.

When I was little, bad things happened around me, and sometimes bad things happened to me. Over time, the bad things became worse because no one was allowed to talk about them. Sometimes, when I tried to name them out loud, I was punished. More often, however, I was told the bad things didn’t exist. 

Everyone grows up with pain. Many grow up with family secrets. For people who grew up like me, however, the frequency and intensity of the pain and the secrets create artifacts in the mind and the body. These are the old things.

They have fancy names that are hard to explain to children.

But my wife understands the old things, even though she did not grow up the way I did. Because of that, we have agreed to try to explain these old things to our two children—as much as we can—and to be open and honest about the work I do each day to release myself from them.

Facing the Pain

My children were laughing, and it was making me angry, and no one in our home pretended it wasn’t happening. No one made me feel ashamed for the old things that were haunting me, but we also weren’t letting the old things set the rules for our lives today. Kira and I talked about it with each other, and we talked about it with the kids. 

We worked on it—together.

It took me longer than I would have liked to figure out that when I hear my children laughing with joy, a very old and very young part of me is trapped somewhere 40 years ago. I am a little boy, terrified of the shouting and the fighting I hear from the other room. 

But the day came when I did figure it out. It didn’t suddenly make everything better, but it helped. I told Kira, and she hugged me. Then I told my kids, and they hugged me.  In our home, we name the old things. We work on them—together.