Laura Kelly Fanucci

Ready for the least surprising summary of spiritual good intentions? I was going to have an amazing Advent. It’s my favorite season of the church calendar, and I was going to live it. I had plans, I had prayers, I had promises. I would reflect deeply and write profusely and enter mindfully into the mystery…

We’re zipping along to church, freeway flying by, wet windows blurred, last night’s snow swirling round tires and trucks as our wipers flash. We’re late to Mass (again). We’ve overdue for grocery shopping (again). We’re behind on errands and housework (again.) And I’m making to-do lists and plans and deadlines while I drive (again). “Mama?”…

On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all people a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear. Isaiah 25:6 Let’s see. Days’ handful still to go and so much left here to be done. The gathering of food and…

How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings… Matthew 13:37 Of course I love the days when they come back. When dark drive floods with headlights, tired travelers droop to baggage claim and I leap up to greet them bright-eyed, arms as wide as…

And again he said, “To what should I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” Luke 13:20-21 Here’s why I love to bake: You start with nothing – an idea, ingredients of possibility, a plan…

Or what woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house, searching carefully until she finds it? And when she does find it, she calls together her friends and neighbors and says to them, “Rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I lost.” In just…

Growing up, I never imagined God sweeping. Or baking. Or gardening. Or helping deliver a baby. For the past few months I’ve been writing a new program on work and calling for small groups in congregations. Since we keep learning that people’s challenges with vocation often stem from a lack of understanding about how God…

We celebrated both boys’ baptism anniversaries a few weeks back. (Now you know why I’ve had baptism on the brain so much lately.) Their days are only a fortnight apart, so in the blur of busy schedules we set aside a single night to celebrate and remember. As I was setting the table for their special…

I do. For over a year, our oldest son switched “I” and “you” whenever he spoke. So he sounded like an overly compassionate child, always concerned with what “you” wanted and what “you” needed, constantly volunteering that “I” should help the crying baby and “I” should clean up the mess. His malaprop-kid-ism was cute at the beginning. But after…