New Skete Monasteries News

  A continuation of interesting dog names By Ida Williams When Turkey’s owner contacted me about scheduling training for their new puppy, Goblet, all I could think was: Are they setting the Thanksgiving table? Three years ago, I wrote an article titled Gus from Accounting and Other Interesting Dog Names . Since then, we've seen over 300 more dogs come through training, and with the return of Turkey—now joined by Goblet—I thought it was time for another round of name highlights. Animal and Plant Names In addition to Turkey, we’ve welcomed dogs with names like Bear, Bee, Birdie, Cricket, Foxy, Gazelle, and Wren. Plant-inspired names are equally popular, including Aspen, Buttercup, Cedar, Daisy, Holly, Iris, Ivy, and Juniper. Food-Inspired Names Food names remain a trend, though perhaps not as strong as before. We've met dogs named Apple, Babka, Ginger, Honey, Pepper (aka Pepsi), Spaghetti, Sugar, Taco (aka Taco Lion), Tuna, and Waffles. Tuna and Waffles—sounds like ...

  Part 1 By Ralph Karow   Last month one of my closest friends for over 40 years entered life eternal. John was only a few months younger than me and was diagnosed with early-onset dementia 5 years ago. I was having weekly “facetime” calls with him and sadly watched him fade away during that time. Calls for the past few months were only possible with his wife as a go-between. His slide from home to hospice came on rather suddenly and unexpectedly. Also unexpected is that I feel closer to him now that he’s passed on than I have in probably the past 10 years. I’m saying 10 years because that’s when I think I started noticing him becoming more irritable, dissatisfied, and possibly even a little disenchanted. Things like that don’t end a connection like ours, but they do add an element of concern and desire to get to the root of whatever was bugging him and fix it. To remove the discord from the harmony we used to share. I spent the past year putting together a book like...

  By Brother Brennan Decades ago, just before my first “brush” with professed religious life, my girlfriend at the time would sometimes attend Sunday Mass with me at Our Lady of Prompt Succor Church in suburban New Orleans. Although she lived in the neighboring parish, we had graduated from the same Catholic grammar school, just one year apart, and thus were immersed in a very traditional Roman Catholic/Southern Christian milieu (just imagine that—a very long-established, traditional, provincial enclave of Old World Roman Catholicism below the Bible Belt). While we would eventually separate, our time together included being very much a part of the religious landscape of such a place and time. It was still the 70s, when the sexual liberation movement was kicking into high gear in the deep South, and many young people were rebelling against traditional religiosity, dissatisfied with the perceived rule-loving, devotion-addicted, spiritual stagnation of church authority. At the same...