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After I finished tossing about a foot of snow with my snow blower earlier this evening, I stood quietly to survey my work. The day’s Nor’easter was retreating, leaving remnants of squalls far above me. They were lit with an emerging half moon, giving the sky a milky glaze. Gusts animated the snow on my roof, casting some on my front walk.

Then all went quiet, and I remembered one of my favorite sayings by Mother Teresa. 

Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart.

How true. There is a particular quality of nature’s silence that the human soul needs desperately. It is a craving that we often deny ourselves, to our peril.

That’s why I so dearly love clearing snow after a winter’s night storm. For the record, a plow service does the real work;...

In the celebration of the Baptism of the Lord, we recognize the power and meaning of our own baptism. We also come to understand how God uses ordinary matter in His sacraments—like water, bread, wine and us—and makes it extraordinary.

From the Church's catechism (§1238) on baptism, we read that "The Church asks God that, through his Son, the power of the Holy Spirit may be sent upon the water, so that those who will be baptized in it may be 'born of water and the Spirit.'"

Sacramentally, water has become a pathway to eternal life—as here, now, in this fallen world, it is a pathway to biological life. Sadly, water is scarce in too many places, and as this report from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops tells us, this scarcity leads to horrible human suffering.

Water is vital for sustaining the life of each person, for sustaining health and socio-economic well-being, and for making possible the very existence of life on our planet. The total amount of water on Planet Earth is fixed. Of the world’s

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