Chef John Besh and restaurateur Tommy Cvitanovich are masters of creating food that allows people to share the joyful gift of a meal at the table. The two high-profile New Orleans restaurateurs told the 19th annual Morning of Spirituality for Men March 15 at St. Anthony of Padua Church in New Orleans that what they do for a living encompasses who they are as Catholics and as fathers.

As some high school teachers may know, it can be a challenge to get a room full of rowdy teenage boys to learn, much less be interested in, the required class curriculum. But a 28-year-old Pope Francis survived and succeeded when he taught literature at the Jesuit-run School of the Immaculate Conception in Santa Fe, Argentina, according to a former student.

In the old days, Father Buddy Noel would have been known as a “late” vocation. After spending many years as the director of religious education at Holy Name of Jesus Parish in New Orleans, he resumed his seminary studies and was ordained to the priesthood at the age of 51.

The awareness that ordinary people can do extraordinary things through perseverance was the theme that reverberated March 14-16 at  “Walking with the Saints: A symposium on Black Catholics, their Concerns and the Journey to Sainthood” presented by the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana.

Pope Francis has talked a lot about the mercy and the forgiveness of God, and he also talked recently about sacramental confession. What did you like about his talk? The Holy Father was giving his Wednesday audience – that’s when he always offers a catechesis on some aspect of the faith – and he talked about confession.

Holy Cross will open a primary school for boys beginning in the 2015-16 school year on the grounds of Transfiguration of the Lord Parish in Gentilly, about a mile from its main campus on Paris Avenue.

Al igual que el Bautismo del Señor,  la transfiguración es una liturgia que se celebra tanto en el Antiguo como en el Nuevo Testamento. PRINCIPALES SIMBOLOS ➤ La montaña: Subir la montaña es un símbolo del crecimiento espiritual de Cristiano.

Team selected and photographed by Ron Brocato Mitchell Johnson became the sixth coach to lead St. Augustine to a Catholic League boys’ basketball championship when he guided the Purple Knights to the 2013-14 District 9-5A title.

Winning state championships is hardly an anomaly at Mount Carmel, as the pyramid of plaques displayed in the school gymnasium’s lobby will attest. But a new one has been added – the elusive Class 5A girls’ basketball championship trophy, which the Cubs claimed on March 8 by defeating Destrehan, 69-60, in the LHSAA State Tournament in Lake Charles.

On the way out the door, former Saints wide receiver Lance Moore got the gold standard in respect from the New Orleans Saints. Owner Tom Benson, who doesn’t often appear in news releases announcing players transactions, gave a tip of the cap to Moore.

More than 300 people packed the ballroom at Xavier University of Louisiana March 8 for Sankofa, a Lenten Day of Reflection, sponsored by the Office of Black Catholic Ministries of the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

Deadline: Submissions due Thursday (10 days before each issue) calendar@clarionherald.org (504) area code unless noted March 14-22 FISH FRIES ALL SAINTS, fish fry, March 14, 21, 28, April 4 and April 11, noon-6 p.m. Althea Holmes Hall, behind church, 300 Ptolemy, New Orleans.

Queridos hermanos, y hermanas en Cristo: El miércoles pasado comenzamos nuestro camino cuaresmal de 40 días, llevando nuestra celebración de la muerte y resurrección de Cristo. Durante este tiempo de Cuaresma, la iglesia nos llama a mirar honestamente nuestras acciones y actitudes para ver las formas en las que no somos fieles en vivir nuestra vocación cristiana.

➤ Age: 30 ➤ Seminary year: Third theology, Notre Dame Seminary ➤ Home Parish: Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, New Orleans ➤ Elementary School: St. Joseph (Ohio) ➤ High School: Walsh Jesuit (Ohio) ➤ College: St. Louis University ➤ Confirmation saint: St. Stephen ➤ Why did you choose this saint?

SAO PAULO (CNS) – They came together as a group to attend World Youth Day 2013 in Rio de Janeiro. The nearly 50 people in their early to late 20s occasionally attended church on Sunday, but more as a habit than anything else.

During Ash Wednesday service, we were marked with the sign of the cross and told, “remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” As a day of repentance, we were reminded of our own mortality and called to take stock of our lives and actions.

In January 2012, Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, ordered that health care plans include free contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs and devices, sterilization and related counseling (the “CASC mandate”).

Lent is time to “change course, to recover the ability to respond to the reality of evil that always challenges us,” he said during his weekly general audience March 5, Ash Wednesday. The pope’s catechesis focused on the meaning of Lent, which, beginning Ash Wednesday for Latin-rite Catholics, marks a 40-day period of penance, prayer and conversion “in preparation for the church’s annual celebration of the saving mysteries of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection,” he said.

ROME (CNS) – Lent is meant to wake up Christians and help them see that God can give them the strength to change their lives and their surroundings, Pope Francis said. Before receiving and distributing ashes at an evening Mass March 5, Ash Wednesday, Pope Francis gave a homily focused on a line from the prophet Joel: “Rend your hearts, not your garments.” The prophet, he said at the Mass at Rome’s Basilica of Santa Sabina, “reminds us that conversion can’t be reduced to exterior forms or vague resolutions, but involves and transforms one’s entire existence, starting with the center of the person, the conscience.” Litany of saints The Mass began after a penitential procession from the nearby monastery of St. Anselm.

The following parishes, schools and entities of the Archdiocese of New Orleans will host St. Joseph Altars this month: ST. LOUIS CATHEDRAL (held at St. Mary’s Church/Old Ursuline Convent, 1116 Chartres St.): March 18, preview viewing 3-6 p.m. March 19, after 7:30 a.m. Mass at St. Louis Cathedral, Archbishop Gregory Aymond will bless the altar at St. Mary’s Church (approximately 8:30 a.m.), with public viewing from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.