I was 16 years old on a youth group retreat in the mountains. One night, I opened my heart to the message being proclaimed: that God so loved the world that He sent His Son for us. Later, I lay under the pine trees and looked up at the countless stars. They seemed different. No longer cold, distant balls of chemical reac- tions, they appeared as an expression of God’s love, as if He were giving those stars directly to me. The truth of God sending His Son changed how I saw the whole universe.

The seasons roll on each year as winter turns into spring and spring steadily moves toward summer. During these same seasons, our liturgical year goes forward, too, as Ordinary Time becomes Lent, Lent turns into Holy Week, the Paschal Triduum, and Easter, and Easter then leads us back into Ordinary Time. It’s a rhythm that we experience every year as Catholics, an opportunity for each of us to participate in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. You can read about the Church’s liturgical year on the US Bishops’ website, https://bit.ly/USCCBYear.

If you’re asthmatic, you know the phrase “as natural as breathing” doesn’t always make a lot of sense. Maybe that’s because breathing isn’t always natural. Sometimes, it’s supernatural.

I come from a family of asthmatics. In my earliest childhood memories, my sister’s nose and mouth are covered with a bulbous plastic mask connected by clear tubes to her transportable nebulizer.