REV. KENNETH SEMON (The Church of the Holy Faith, Sante Fe, NM): I try to tell people—don’t just come on Sunday, you know, you’ll miss it. You’ll miss everything that this means and all that leads up to it.

They’re called the three solemn days. To go through the experience of the three days is really to go through what changes life for people. And it starts Maundy Thursday with the washing of the feet and the last supper and Jesus’ institution of the Holy Eucharist.

REV. ROCKY SCHUSTER (Episcopal Priest, Taos, NM): Jesus gives the new commandment—love one another as I have loved you, as opposed to as you would have others love you. You serve one another, you feed one another, you take care of one another, even to the point of death. And in the process of doing that, you’ll find new life, you’ll get the Easter experience, you’ll discover what eternal life is really all about.

REV. SEMON: I must tell you, it’s so humbling to wash people’s feet. I cannot tell you what an experience that is, and what a privilege it is really. In Jesus’ day they weren’t necessarily wearing shoes and, in fact, a servant could not be compelled to wash someone’s feet. So you see, it’s even more of an expression of service and humility before your fellows.

We dress in white, so it’s a great change from the purple we’ve been wearing, or the red we’ve worn, throughout Holy Week. When the service is over, after everyone has received communion, we will process into the “Garden of Gethsemane,” which is in our chapel. Jesus says, “Could you watch with me but an hour?” He says that to his disciples. And so people will sit there throughout the night, in prayer of course, silence.

REV. SCHUSTER: We know that he leaves the last supper, he goes and prays, and is captured and taken to trial.

Rev. Kenneth Semon

REV. SEMON: At the end of the service, instead of the final blessing, we strip the altar. We pull everything out of the sanctuary, everything with color. And all the while we are stripping the altar, the choir will be chanting a Psalm of, you know, this is very serious…life is coming to an end.

REV. SCHUSTER: You get the imagery of Jesus being stripped of his clothing and whipped and the rest of the starkness, of the rest of the story.

REV. SEMON: The lights go off. You feel the darkness descend over the Earth, you really do.

REV. SCHUSTER: Good Friday is the ultimate act of loving us. It is the crucifixion, it is taking the suffering that he took under arrest, it is the dying. And so doing these physical things, and acts of contrition, make a lot of sense to people on Good Friday.

REV. SEMON: Pilgrimage becomes a metaphor for life, you know, we’re going to the Holy Place, following our Lord who goes before us. And the tradition here is to go to Chimayo, to this wonderful little place, the Santuario. There’s a tradition that the earth, the dirt in the sacristy, has healing powers. And so it’s a sort of sacred site.

ELIZABETH FRIARY: This is the most religious thing that I do every year because it just feels really holy. And I suppose I could walk it by myself any other time of year, but it wouldn’t be with this crowd.

DONNA LUCERO: We’re going to be tired. We’re going to be very exhausted by the end of the day. But, you know, Jesus did this for us and so we got to give a little bit back, as much as we can. So it is kind of very spiritually uplifting.

REV. SCHUSTER: That physical participation adds an extra dimension. It’s not just sitting in a pew or standing or kneeling. That actual physical activity puts it into your body, so you feel it.

JOSE MIGUEL PACHECO: You’re physically exhausted, you have blisters. And I mean you’re just worn out. And it just gives you such a tiny little taste of what Jesus had to endure for us.

REV. SCHUSTER: When you come to Easter Sunday, our desire is to not just give thanks for what happened two thousand years ago but, in truth, to comprehend the new life that the resurrection­ brings to all of us. That when we love one another as Christ loved us, we actually get to live that resurrected life. And to take that out with us when we leave here—not just to serve one another but to serve everybody we encounter. That whole service represents the joy we can have in the world…the rest of the world…the rest of the time.

RABBI JAMIE KORNGOLD (Adventure Rabbi): The desert is absolutely the right place to be telling this story. The core of this story is that the Israelites went down to Egypt as a family. They come out, 600,000 people, and then they wander in the wilderness and become a nation. It’s in the wilderness where they meet God. It’s in the wilderness where God speaks to Moses. It’s in the wilderness where the people get the teachings of the Torah.

On Passover, we’re taught to embody the story, to act out the story, and so when we walk through the desert, we really get that idea of freedom, of being out in the wilderness and all the spiritual moments that are possible.

I talk a lot about the idea of cultivating the patience to see burning bushes. The idea being that if Moses had been called from God and the burning bush today, he would have just walked right by it because his cell phone would have rang. So one of the things that we work on a lot out here is just reminding people to just slow down and just be fully present noticing this amazing environment.

Our seder has most of the elements of a traditional seder but, ironically, we’ve taken the “seder,” which means “order,” out of the seder. We hike a mile and a half up to the seder, we do some teachings along the way. And then we have the first part of the seder underneath the arch.

(reading to group): “On all other nights, we eat leavened bread or matzah. Why on this night only matzah?”

RABBI KORNGOLD: One of the practices that we do that’s very unusual, is we read the story of the Exodus directly from the scroll, from the Torah scroll. We’re trying to take this spiritually rich experience that people have out here and ignite their Judaism.

Rabbi Evon Yakar: (speaking at seder) As we look back and hold on to the tradition, the story, that we come from, it’s also our responsibility to continue telling, and continue writing, that story.

RABBI KORNGOLD: And for a lot of people that come on our trips, they’ve never seen a Torah up close. And what we’re trying to do is create a relationship between the people and their Torah.

Cantor Rollin Simmons reading from Torah scroll: “Here was the bush burning in flames, but the bush was not consumed…”

RABBI KORNGOLD: So you’re already feeling elevated and then you read from the bible, or then you read from the liturgy. Suddenly the words, the ancient words take on the power that they were supposed to take on all along.

The dancing that takes place at the end of the first part of the seder up under the arch is so exuberant. We’re joyful just that we’re up here, that we can be in this gorgeous place. And then we all hike back down, and then finish the seder along the banks of the Colorado River.

Rabbi Yakar: “We now turn to the karpas, parsley…the saltwater represents the tears of enslavement…”

Group reading together: “This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt.”

RABBI KORNGOLD: One of the things that I love about the Adventure Rabbi retreat in Moab is looking back over my shoulder at this snake, this line of people, walking through the desert. It looks so much like the wilderness of Zin, it looks like the Negev, it looks like the land through which the people walked. It’s an amazing feeling of, “Hey Moses, hey Miriam, hey Aaron! It worked. It worked. All 600,000 of you made this trek through the wilderness and here we are, thousands of years later, going through the wilderness as Jewish people. Your ideas were good. They held out guys!”

BOB ABERNETHY, host: Finally, the world’s largest religious festival got underway in India this week. Kim Lawton has more.

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: For the next two months, as many as 100 million Hindu pilgrims are expected to converge in northern India for the Maha Kumba Mela or Big Pitcher festival. It happens only once every 12 years. The pilgrims believe their sins will be washed away by bathing at the point where the Ganges and Yamuna rivers meet a third mystical river. The festival has been taking place for more than 2,000 years, and officials say this may be the biggest celebration yet.

The event commemorates a Hindu story that describes the god Vishnu fight with demons to gain possession of a golden pitcher containing the nectar of immortality. During the battle, some drops fell to the earth. Smaller Kumbh Mela festivals are held more often at the spots where tradition says those drops fell. But this Big Pitcher Festival is considered the holiest. Hindu sages and hermits come out of their seclusion, and the event has also become a meeting point for yoga practitioners from around the world.

Authorities have constructed makeshift tents and medical facilities in the small town where the pilgrims are gathering, but security is a huge challenge. Another problem: dealing with the already-severe pollution in the Ganges River. The government has banned pilgrims from using plastic bags and asked them not to use soap. Industries in the area have been put under new pollution restrictions. Despite the problems and the massive crowds, many pilgrims who make the trek say this will be the spiritual journey of their lifetime. I’m Kim Lawton reporting.

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: In Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, Bob and Diane Gayer and their sons Jarek and Clay are doing a little Christmas shopping. Not at the mall…at their church! Long’s Chapel United Methodist Church sponsored an Alternative Christmas Market, where various booths offered gift ideas that supported local and international charities. Diane says projects like this help her family set a different tone for Christmas.

DIANE GAYER: It’s a very tricky time for the family.

CLAY GAYER: Expensive.

DIANE GAYER: It is expensive, and we live in a real “me” societ,y so the children always think of themselves first. And as a parent, you want them to think of others.

LAWTON: The tradition of giving Christmas presents is often tied to the magi, or wise men, who according to the Bible story brought precious gifts to the baby Jesus. But many Christians say that tradition has gotten out of hand. According to the National Retail Federation, Americans will spend $563 billion for Christmas 2012. The average family is expected to shell out about $750. The federation also forecasts that this holiday season, consumers will be spending the highest amount ever on gifts for themselves. Amid all the shopping frenzy, more and more church leaders are speaking out against self-indulgence and consumerism.

REV. MIKE SLAUGHTER (Ginghamsburg Church): It’s kind of hijacked the whole idea that Christmas is about Jesus’ birth and honoring Jesus with the priorities that Jesus would have in the world, especially amongst marginalized people. But what we’ve done is made it more about us, and it’s become kind of one of the biggest, gluttonous feast days on the Christian calendar.

LAWTON: Rev. Mike Slaughter is lead pastor of Ginghamsburg Church outside Dayton, Ohio, and author of the book, “Christmas Is Not Your Birthday,” in which he urges people to consider what Jesus might like for his birthday.

SLAUGHTER: What we need to see in Christmas—regardless of what religious background or no, no religious background—is the purpose of Jesus was to serve the needs of the world.

LAWTON: To that end, for the last eight years, Slaughter has issued a Christmas challenge to his congregation:

SLAUGHTER: We’ve simply said whatever you spend on yourself, bring an equal amount for a focus we have in our community or the world.

LAWTON: Through what they call the Christmas Miracle Offering, the church has built 243 schools and 19 clean water facilities in Darfur and a health clinic in South Sudan. He says children have been among the most enthusiastic supporters.

SLAUGHTER: That’s one of the things that surprised me the most. I really thought we were going get pushback from kids, that kids would not understand this. And what happened was the kids began to worry that if they got presents, other children would die. I was shocked.

LAWTON: The church also supports several projects to help the local community, which has been hard hit by the economic downturn. There are GED programs, jobs programs, and food pantries. Marcia Florkey directs the church’s outreach ministry called New Path.

MARCIA FLORKEY (New Path): We’ve been really blessed because we have a lot of folks here who are really concerned about their neighbors, who really want to do all they can do to love their neighbors.

LAWTON: In recent years, several international humanitarian organizations have been sponsoring projects to help others at Christmas time. For example, through Operation Christmas Child, Samaritan’s Purse urges people to pack shoe boxes of gifts for needy children. Since 1993, the group says it has delivered more than 100 million boxes around the world. Now, more local churches are also calling for a new, more spiritual look at Christmas gift-giving.

CARDINAL DONALD WUERL (Archdiocese of Washington): (in video) Come and experience the joy and peace of Christ—the perfect gift at Christmas. Merry Christmas.

LAWTON: The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington has an initiative called “Find the Perfect Gift.” The United Methodist denomination has launched a million dollar campaign called “Reclaim Christmas.” In Lake Junaluska, Pastor Chuck Wilson wanted Long’s Chapel to be part of it.

REV. CHUCK WILSON (Long’s Chapel United Methodist Church): We know that we’re not going to completely debunk American consumerism. But we do encourage great participation by just placing before our people dozens and dozens of opportunities for giving.

LAWTON: Many of those opportunities were represented at the alternative market in the fellowship hall. Families like the Gayers could buy fair trade coffee and chocolate to benefit United Methodist relief efforts. Or they could give a donation in someone’s honor to build wells in Africa. At one table, members of a church missions team sold purses made by a woman they met who runs an orphanage and school in Kenya.

JULIANNE WILSON (Long’s Chapel United Methodist Church): It’s really neat when people come over here and buy them. And they can give them as gifts. So, you know, this is going all the way to help some kid maybe have lunch or breakfast or get an education.

LAWTON: Eleven-year-old Jarek and his ten-year-old brother Clay both bought necklaces from a mission that works in Africa.

JAREK GAYER: It’s a win-win for everybody because I really like this necklace, but the money goes to more…

CLAY GAYER: A good cause.

JAREK GAYER: Yeah.

LAWTON: The Gayer family also buys gifts for needy local children through a program called Christmas Angels.

BOB GAYER: Jarek delivers gifts with me on the day that we deliver for Christmas Angels. And he gets to see that, you know, sometimes life isn’t always as nice as he has it at home.

JAREK GAYER: It’s fun but it’s like, life-touching because it’s like you know that, OK, I have all this stuff and when you go to the person’s house, it’s just like (makes a surprised face), Huh! It like, it just like touches your heart.

LAWTON: This year, Long’s Chapel also worked with the group Stop Hunger Now to pack meals that will be shipped overseas. In one afternoon, the church put together more than 10,000 meals for Haiti. Clay says for him, that’s the real meaning of Christmas.

CLAY GAYER: Christmas is not mostly about yourself. It’s mostly all about giving.

LAWTON: Pastor Wilson says behind all their efforts is a desire to honor what they believe is the ultimate Christmas gift: Jesus coming into the world.

C. WILSON: We believe in this important kind of theological concept called the Incarnation, that God came and got with us. God brought himself in the person of Jesus and placed himself before us and came in the form of a child.

SLAUGHTER: As a Christian to me one of the greatest miracles, you know, we talk about the miracle of the resurrection, but the greatest miracle to me is the whole idea of the Incarnation, is that God would reveal God’s self in a humble human being.

LAWTON: And Rev. Slaughter believes that’s indeed a birthday worth celebrating.

I’m Kim Lawton reporting.

SUSAN BRAUNSTEIN (The Jewish Museum, New York): The rabbis associated a miracle with the holiday that when the ancient soldiers came to rededicate the Temple in Jerusalem and they lit the menorah that was in the Temple, they only had one cruse of oil to burn for one day, but miraculously it burned for eight, and so that’s why we call it the festival of lights and why we light the Hanukkah lamp. The rabbis going back to Maimonides and earlier felt that the lights of the Hanukkah lamp were sacred.

The rabbis actually did specify a list of materials that were preferable to use for the Hanukkah lamps. Gold and silver, of course, being the best, if you could possibly afford that. Most people couldn’t. If you were poor and couldn’t afford a permanent Hanukkah lamp, you could use an egg shell, or a nut shell, or a potato carved out.

The lamps used in homes for most of the centuries that Hanukkah has been celebrated were actually using oil. And then over time in the 19th century and into the 20th century, candles became more popular for home use. It’s pretty messy to use oil; we’ve tried it.

The rabbis in ancient times didn’t say much about the shape of the lamp or its decoration, and over time the decoration on the back plates or the shaft and the arms of the lamps became amazingly elaborate, inventive, and fun because there were no restrictions. And so many of them actually reflect the places where Jews were living, so in our collection, for example, we have a lamp that was made in Australia, and it has kangaroos and emus on it. We have one made in the United States with the Statue of Liberty on it. Some of the lamps are actually in the shapes of houses or synagogues.

Wherever Jews went they always paid homage to the ruler where they lived, knowing that their fate was often in the hands of the ruler. A very common symbol that we find on lamps that used to be from Poland are the double-headed eagle of the Austrian Empire.

The lamps from Islamic lands generally don’t represent human figures in objects for religious use, and so many lamps are in architectural form. They have the pointed arches or the horseshoe shaped arches that are so common in Islamic-land architecture.

Lamps from the Indian Jewish community actually come from three different communities located in different parts of India. We have one that is in the shape of a Jewish star, and I think that has to do with Zionistic aspirations of the community. We have in the collection a charming lamp made just about the time when Israel gained independence in 1948 of an Israeli soldier holding a banner with the Israeli flag, and across the top of the banner are the places where you would put the lights.

One of my favorite lamps is a lamp that’s in the shape of the Tree of Knowledge that stood in the Garden of Eden, written about in the Bible, and crawling up it’s trunk is a snake, the one that tempted Eve to eat the apple. I just love the idea that one would equate the Hanukkah lamp with a tree and with one that was in the biblical story, and the whole thing is very folkishly rendered, and so it just has a special place in my heart. I really just enjoy lighting my lamp and just seeing those candles glowing and thinking about all my fellow Jews all over the world who are lighting the lamp along with me.

KIM LAWTON, correspondent:  It’s been a century of celebration.  For the past one hundred years, St. Olaf College, a small Lutheran school in Minnesota, has put on a Christmas concert that has become known—and loved—around the world. In a variety of ways, nearly a third of St. Olaf’s 3,000 students participate in the Christmas Festival, which combines more than 600 voices from five campus choirs, including the elite St. Olaf Choir. The repertoire showcases a variety of sacred music.  There are classic holiday standards, songs that hark back to the school’s Scandinavian heritage, and some from other cultures as well.  The program is designed to reflect the essential religious meaning of Christmas.  Anton Armstrong conducts the St. Olaf Choir.

ANTON ARMSTRONG, Conductor, St. Olaf Choir:  It’s just not the music, but that we are lifting up a message, a message of hope, a message of faith, a message of understanding, and most of all a message of love.

LAWTON:  The popularity of the Christmas Festival has gone global.  For decades, it has been broadcast on public radio and public television, and the Armed Forces Radio and TV Service as well.  This centennial concert was also simulcast in movie-theaters across the country.

ARMSTRONG:  It has been a model for spreading this message of faith at a time that people tend to forget why the season even exists.

LAWTON:  It all began 100 years ago, when F. Melius Christiansen, a Lutheran immigrant from Norway, established the St. Olaf music department and student choir.

ARMSTRONG:  What he found was that church music had fallen to a very lamentable state, that the popular music of the day seemed to be eradicating all the traditional music and that so many of the young immigrant Norwegian students who he was teaching at St. Olaf were forgetting the heritage of great hymns.  So he established the choir in many ways to revitalize choral singing in the church, congregational singing in the church.

LAWTON:  Christiansen insisted on artistic excellence, and the reputation of the St. Olaf choir continued to grow.  The choir went on tour and performed in some of the top venues in the nation.  According to many scholars, Christiansen’s work had a profound influence on America’s a capella choral tradition.

ARMSTRONG:  He really set a model for choral sound, he changed the whole concept of choral and really taking a program of sacred, unaccompanied choral music and doing it at such a level that it would be accepted in the finest concert halls.

LAWTON:  While the college now has several choirs, the St. Olaf Choir remains the most elite.  Armstrong is only its fourth conductor.  He was hired in 1990 and actually sang in the choir himself as a student in the 1970s.  He holds rigorous auditions.

ARMSTRONG:  I don’t want just a beautiful voice. Because sometimes as good as these kids are, I can get divas. I don’t have time for divas and this is not about me. The work we do in all of our groups, especially that choir, has to be about us, and service.

LAWTON:  On top of their academic school load, choir members practice an hour and a half a day, five days a week.  Laura Kyle is a junior English major and has been in the choir for two years.

LAURA KYLE, Choir Member:  I’m named after my great grandma who was in the choir and sang under F. Melius Christensen, and I was never able to meet her, but being in the choir has made me feel a connection on that level and that has made it extra special for me.

LAWTON:  The students develop close relationships with one another.

BENJAMIN SIMMONS, Choir Member: It’s been one of the most powerful experiences of my life to sing in such an amazing ensemble, to make music at such an incredibly high level of artistry, but at the same time, to have that camaraderie with my fellow choir members who are really like family.

LAWTON:  In a unique trait, St. Olaf Choir members always hold hands with each other during performances.

BRYAN WELLS, Choir Member:  It really helps us connect with the people around us, on a personal, as well as a musical level.

LAWTON:  Armstrong believes what takes place in the performances goes beyond the music.

ARMSTRONG: I’m constantly admonishing them not to just sing correct technique, correct words, I want the message.

KATHRYN BABER, Choir Member:  One of the most special things about the St. Olaf Choir is knowing that when you go out to perform, no matter where you are or what performance it may be, that there are people out there whose lives you can touch, and that also includes the people that you stand next to.

LAWTON:  The choir strives to be true to its Lutheran heritage, but Armstrong says it’s not about pushing a particular brand of Christianity.

ARMSTRONG:  We invite people into a conversation and for people to explore their thoughts, their feelings, without creating walls around them, but to look at, hopefully a God that is a God of love and God of hope. Religion, especially Christianity in this country, sometimes has been pulled in such a direction of condemnation we’ve lost I think the gospel of grace.

LAWTON:  Armstrong says the connection between music and spirituality has been powerful in his own life.

ARMSTRONG:  I’m a regular churchgoer, but I have to honestly say, sometimes my closest experiences to God have been either singing in the ST. Olaf Choir or conducting that choir.

LAWTON:  He recalls visiting his mother shortly before she died.  She was unresponsive, until he started playing and singing hymns.

ARMSTRONG:  Her favorite gospel hymn would be his eye is on the sparrow and I started to sing:  And I sing because I‘m happy. I sing because I’m free. His eye is on the sparrow. And I know He watches me. She sang with me. And when that was done, she looks up at me and she goes, “Baby! When’d you get here?”  When science and medicine couldn’t bring my mother back to me, these hymns, these songs of faith that she shared with me, were the things that we shared together.

LAWTON:  According to Armstrong, the choir sings to bring glory to God.  And perhaps nowhere is that more evident than in their signature song, Beautiful Savior, an arrangement done by Christiansen.

ARMSTRONG:  That I think has been a song that can epitomize and has been a model for us throughout the years, why do we do this? We sing praise to God.  Glory and honor, praise, adoration, now and forevermore be thine. That is the focus of our work.

LAWTON:  When everything falls into place, Armstrong says it’s a spiritual experience.

ARMSTRONG:  Some people go to prayer and do that, but you know, still small voices and burning bushes don’t seem to work with me. You know? But in the minute when that chord locks and we’ve been struggling with it and it finally works, it’s as if, yea, God is there.

LAWTON:  It’s an experience he hopes gets transmitted to the audience as well.

ARMSTRONG: When people, when they leave, they have been transformed. They don’t know why, but perhaps at 90 minutes of experiencing the utmost in beautiful music, in powerful and profound text, will somehow seep into the bodies of those performing and certainly those who are hearing.

LAWTON:  I’m Kim Lawton in Northfield, Minnesota.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: This week, the eve of All Saint’s Day, All Hallow’s Eve (October 31), also known as Halloween, as it was celebrated at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington. Each year the friars there choose four saints to honor out of the roughly 10,000 Catholics venerate, and the Dominicans’ vigil has become a big draw for priests, nuns—whom Catholics call “religious”—and especially college students. Our guide several years ago was Brother James Cuddy, now Father Cuddy, chaplain at Providence College in Rhode Island.

Brother JAMES CUDDY, O.P. (Dominican House of Studies): On the most basic level, I think you can view saints as being older brothers and sisters or those who have professed the same beliefs as you, these men and women who have lived these heroic lives of virtue and have, you know, given an example of how to live the Christian life. But more than that, it’s our faith that says that the church is all one body, whether it be those of us who are here on earth now, or those of us who have gone before. And so we believe that the saints are in heaven now praying for us and urging us on so that we might join them some day.

There are some saints who are more popular today than others. The Blessed Virgin Mary we actually call the Queen of the Saints. Certainly, we can point to Saint Francis as being extraordinarily popular; Saint Anthony of Padua for anyone who loses their car keys. There’s also devotion, great devotion to some more contemporary saints—Blessed Teresa of Calcutta or Saint Padre Pio.

Each year when planning this liturgy, brothers will get together, Dominican brothers will get together and try and identify certain saints that represent a good cross-section of the church.

UNIDENTIFIED DOMINICAN FRIAR #1: (reading prayer) To this glorious saint, I know by experience, to help us in all. And Our Lord would have us understand that…

Brother CUDDY: So you’ll have some men and some women, some who were priests and religious and some who were lay people, some who were martyrs, and some who just lived extraordinarily holy lives.

We have patron saints, you know, a saint who is particularly associated with a certain cause or a certain group of people.

You hear a reading from scripture…

UNIDENTIFIED DOMINICAN FRIAR #2: (reading from Scripture) Therefore you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.

…followed by a reflection given by one of the Dominican brothers, sort of like a homily. And after that there will be some more chant—a Slavonic chant and Gregorian chant.

Brother CUDDY: That’s followed by the Litany of the Saints, when all of the attendees are in procession walking towards our reliquary, our collection of relics from the saints, and all the while we’re chanting, asking for the intercession of all of the saints.

Pope John Paul II, who many consider to be a saint and might one day be a saint, said that they’re the source and origin of renewal during every difficult time in the history of the church. And so not only are we pointing to these different saints and celebrating all of the good things during their lives, but we’re hopefully encouraging one another to become the saints of this age.

ABERNETHY: Brother James’s reference to St. Anthony of Padua and car keys has to do with the 13th-century Franciscan’s reputation as a finder of lost things.