Sunday, February 15, 2026 – Day 541

Sunday, February 15, 2026

Good morning, everyone!

More family lore to go with your morning coffee.

Sunday mornings meant 9:00 a.m. Mass at St. Anastasia. That required getting eight kids up, fed, and dressed in proper church clothes. “Casual” wasn’t in our vocabulary—at least not until sometime in the late 1970s when the Church got progressive and brought in guitars to engage the youth.

In our grade school years, we made a special effort on the big holidays that mattered most to my parents—Easter, Mother’s Day, Christmas. Those were dress-up Sundays. Shined shoes. Pressed clothes. Dress jackets. Combed hair. In those early years, we could all squeeze into the station wagon for the one-mile drive to church. We’d arrive early enough to claim our usual spot: the second pew, directly facing the lectern. In some years there was enough time to snap a photo before piling into the car.

My dad was one of the readers at Mass when we were young. I remember being struck by his presence. As we walked across the gravel parking lot, you could hear the steady crunch of pebbles under the soles of his shoes. That sound stays with me. It made him seem larger than life—like a pillar of the Church itself. When he stepped up to read, I sat a little straighter.

There was a time, when my dad was a boy, that serious thought was given to him becoming a priest. It was what his mother wanted for her only son. I imagine it couldn’t have been easy to tell her that wasn’t the path he would take—especially once he was at Notre Dame and sharing a room with someone who did go on to become a priest. That likely added weight to the decision.

I’ve often wondered if his mother ever fully forgave him for choosing the law over the collar. But standing there in that second pew, watching him read, I never once thought he had disappointed anyone. To me, he looked exactly where he was meant to be.

And every now and then, when I hear gravel crunch under someone’s shoes, I’m right back there again.

Have a wonderful Sunday. Love you guys. ❤️