Young people today experience various pressures and expectations that can make them anxious.

In a recent essay, Professor Timothy P. O’Malley, of Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life, crisply describes some of the over-the-top pressures that graduating college students are likely to encounter in commencement addresses:

Within 24 hours of the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics, my almost 4-year-old daughter asked me if she could take a gymnastics class. Then she wanted to begin swimming lessons (finally). Then she asked if we could buy a horse. And just the other morning, she wanted to put on her sneakers so she could go “run like the fast girls” in the driveway.

Known to contemporaries as Chiara Offreduccio, Clare was born in 1194 in Assisi, a small city in the Umbrian region of Italy, the eldest daughter of Favorino Scifi, Count of Sasso-Rosso, a forceful but honest Catholic gentleman. Her lovely mother Ortolana, of the noble Fiumi family from Florence, was conspicuous for her piety and care for the poor.

This time of year, the four o’clock is blooming and cheering up gardens all through our diocese. These marvelous flowers are considered old-fashioned and are sometimes overlooked as plantings but don’t count them out. They are definitely worthy of a spot in the garden.

The headline on the article published by the Pew Research Center was stunning: “Just one-third of U.S. Catholics agree with the church that Eucharist is body, blood of Christ.”

The article, which was published in August 2019, summarized the results of a Pew Research Center survey. The study focused on the Catholic teaching of transubstantiation, claiming that fewer Catholics than ever still believe in this core doctrine.

Every fall the push to do more intensifies. Sharpen your pencil and dig in.

Produce more, study more, socialize more, exercise more, volunteer more. The calendar becomes the battlefield, its squares squeezed ever tighter. If summer is for vacation, fall is for achievement.

I’ve written before about my son, DeForeest. At the age of three, he chose John Adams as his favorite U.S. president. Adams, a brilliant statesman, respected for his intellect and political acumen, comes closest to being the one man responsible for inventing America. He was also a curmudgeon, whose blunt honesty made enemies with ease. People are troubled by honesty.

In our mid-summer weekday Masses, we read a series of parables from the Gospel of St. Matthew. These stories were perfect for summer with their portrayal of Jesus and his disciples by the sea and their images of farmers laboring in their fields.