Wayside Shrine in Strachocina, Poland The Ludwig family closed out our summer this year with a visit from my cousins from New York, along with their children and families. For two weeks our house was filled with raucous, boisterous Italians, laughing and reminiscing and, of course, eating. What a joy it was to see my little ones meet their East Coast kin for the very first time, to watch them play...  Read More

by Tara Ludwig Good Shepherd by Jean Baptiste de Champaigne “Indeed in nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him ”- J.R.R. TolkienThe Fellowship of the Ring Dear Peregrinus:  (A Wednesday in July)Well, my dear friend, it has been another journey around the sun since I, Tara Ludwig, have written to you last.  A full...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: I have begun to write this letter to you on Monday, the day after Pentecost, when liturgically speaking we have re-entered Ordinary Time, in its 10th Week. Much has happened in our lives, in our nation, and internationally since Ash Wednesday on March 2nd. For example, the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014 suffered a major expansion on Thursday, 24 February 2022...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: Happy Eastertide to you, old friend. Be sure to write to me about any insights you gained during Holy Week this year, because I gain so much from the depths I discover inside of your insights. It is one thing for me to receive from you an insight; it is quite another for me to understand what it means and, eventually, to be able to make that insight my own...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: As I begin to write to you, the Sun, having made most of its transit today through a cloudy sky, is now propelling itself (though it seems to fall) toward the west, dropping behind a stand of hundred-year-old Douglas firs, which are rooted over there some fifty yards beyond my windows. For all the glorious light that the Sun gave today to the world, I wonder if it ever finds itself preoccupied with the shadows that its effulgence...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: I got to thinking how we, in the Catholic liturgical calendar, have as of last Sunday, January 9th, entered “Ordinary Time”. And the feast day that marks its commencement is that of the Baptism, by John, of Jesus in the Jordan River... Surely for Jesus Himself, and certainly for John the Baptist, there was nothing ordinary about that day...   Read More

Dear Peregrinus: Blessing to you in this month of November, the last of the four months to have thirty days – “Thirty days has September, April, June, and November”. In Anglo-Saxon (i.e., “Old English”), this month was called Blōtmōnaþ, the month when the Anglo-Saxons sacrificed cattle to their gods. The root “blōt- “means “blood sacrifice”...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: Thank you for being in touch with both Tara and Mary, who think the world of you, and who love writing to you each summer. Your gentle way with both, having just the right touch with each, proves to me (as if I needed more proof) that you are good with people. Your “way” with them is your greatest, and most enduring, work of Art. It was also Jesus’ greatest work of Art...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: I am writing to you from the western edge of the continent, on the Oregon coast, in a hideaway graciously offered me to inhabit for a week by John and Denise, in this week before my 67th birthday. Writing is why I am here, and for long walks in the afternoon through the ocean-saturated air. It is interesting to me the way that we stumble about in Time...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: I greet you warmly and acknowledge how it is likely true that you and I will be remembering our mothers this weekend. I still find it fascinating that I call my mother “mom” and never by her first name, Doris. She was not a “role”, such that I would want to keep her locked inside it; she was far more than a role. She was a presence. That is different. I am convinced that even in Heaven, when I meet her again, I will greet her the way that I always did: “Hey, mom!”, and not with “Hello, Doris.” ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: Blessings to you during this Holy Week. I continue to pray, not only for myself but for everyone, that we may comprehend how we, in our stubborn desire to return to normal, continue to reject the profound disruption of our “normal” way of being with one another as Americans, and as human beings. I recall how the newly called People of God, set free from their enslavement in Egypt, soon wanted to go back to Egypt and slavery rather than to learn how, in the Wilderness with God, to be free, “to become a people all His own.” ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: It seemed a perfect day to be writing to you, because, well, any day is closer to “a perfect day” when you are in it. And today is the feast day of a brother and sister – who were twins! – who both became Saints (i.e., what the Church means by a genuinely successful human being – being a human being in the way God “does” human being - Jesus) ...  Read More