Easter in Ordinary

This fine book, An Alley in Chicago: The Life and Legacy of Monsignor John Egan , tells an important story of the Church in Chicago before, during, and after the Second Vatican Council through the life and experience of one of the city's more notable inhabitants, Jack Egan. (An earlier, 1991 edition is available for free here .) Simply put, I loved this bittersweet book. Jack Egan , a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, led a life that is difficult to summarize: priest, pastor, community organizer, and activist are but a few words. A teacher once told me, "To tell me who you are, tell me who your friends are." This book, populated by Egan's many friends, tells us a lot about who he was. Many of the names were known to me, certain names were people whom I had met, and a select number of them are people that I have known well, and a few are still with us. The story is bittersweet for three reasons: first, for those recalled in the book who have gone on to their et...

As soon as I learned in January that Mark Zuckerberg commited to a " Year of Books ," I decided to accompany him. Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, seems a very smart, creative person who also aims to make a difference in the world (for instance, launching http://www.fwd.us/  to advocate for immigration reform). Zuckerberg described his project as: My challenge for 2015 is to read a new book every other week -- with an emphasis on learning about different cultures, beliefs, histories and technologies. Given who he is and those simple words, I was onboard. My undergraduate studies were in the  Program of Liberal Studies (P.L.S.) at the University of Notre Dame. While many had suspicions what P.L.S. might signify-- including the more tame Probably Law School or Pretty Late Sleepers-- it was a dynamic laboratory for learning. Launched in 1950, based on similar programs at the University of Chicago and Columbia, P.L.S.'s heart is the Great Books semina...