The University of Georgia may have fallen short of winning a national football championship by losing to Alabama in overtime, but the Bulldogs won the recruiting war for 2018 by signing a majority of the nation’s top high school talent.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A variety of resources to help Catholics observe Lent is available through the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website: www.usccb.org/lent. The theme of this year’s Lenten resources is “Raise Up, Sacrifice, Offer,”which includes daily suggestions for reading, reflection, prayer and action.

Loyola University New Orleans hosted the one-day, Louisiana Journalism Education Association (JEA) Conference and annual Tom Bell Silver Scribe Contest Feb. 1. “The conference is designed as an opportunity for high school students to build professional skills and begin envisioning a possible future in journalism and communications,” said Albert Dupont, Louisiana JEA president and instructor in the Loyola School of Mass Communication.

Two small flecks of red. When I knelt down to genuflect on the outside of my pew, they immediately stood out. Gingerly, I reached for them and picked them up. Rose petals. Just as I suspected. My husband was astonished that I had even seen them. But I had been meant to find them. It was my sign – the sign that prayers would be answered.

Being in solidarity with people from a different culture is one reason Xavier University of Louisiana’s Office of Campus Ministry has organized its inaugural mission trip to Honduras this summer. Another is to further the work of St. Katharine Drexel, Xavier University’s founder, whose life’s mission “promoted a more just and human society,” said Xavier student Sarah Bertrand, who is coordinating the trip.

It’s the price every homeowner in South Louisiana must eventually pay: re-armoring structures assaulted by scorching summers, heavy rains and winters that can feel as cold as Minnesota one day and swampy the next. That time has arrived for Spanish Renaissance-style St. Joseph Church and its 99-foot-high bell tower, which rises majestically over the streets of Old Gretna.

At the Louisiana FIRST® Technical Challenge (FTC) regional championship Feb. 3 at the University of New Orleans, St. Mary’s Dominican High School registered two teams to compete. Dominican’s “Indiana Janes” team was a finalist for the Think Award. The Dominican “Valkyries” won the Motivate Award and placed eighth for the Alliance section and were selected to play in the semifinals.

The CYO/Youth and Young Adult Ministry’s Young Adult Council is collecting donations for its monthly service project in February to benefit the Free Indeed Safe House on the northshore, that helps human trafficking victims.

National Signing Day seems to be all about the four- and five-star players announcing their college choice. But, in many locales, it is so much more than that. In St. Charles Parish, students from Destrehan and Hahnville announced their future destinations but also showed a level of maturity and awareness for which they do not get enough credit.

Catholic priests must deliver good homilies so the “good news” of the Gospel can take root in people’s hearts and help them live holier lives, Pope Francis said. But the faithful in the pews need to do their part, too, the pope said at his weekly general audience Feb. 7.

HOLY NAME SOCIETY, at St. Benedict’s Catholic Church, hosts its Lenten “Famous Fish Fry” Feb. 23, March 9 and 23, 4-7 p.m.  10 a plate. Menu: fried fish and/or shrimp, potato salad or French fries, coleslaw, dessert.  Tickets at the door or presale through parish office at (985) 892-5202. Dine-in or take-out service. 20370 Smith Road in Covington.

Two of the Catholic League’s premier guards, Elijah Morgan of Jesuit and St. Augustine’s Damon Landry (4), collide while vying for the basketball during a key District 9-5A game played Feb. 8 at Jesuit. Although Morgan scored a game-high 25 points, Landry’s 15 points contributed greatly to the Purple Knights’ 49-42 victory. With two games remaining in the season, Holy Cross has a 9-2 district, record and St. Augustine is 8-2 and still in contention for a share of the district title.

For many in New Orleans East living near Chef Menteur Highway, Feb. 7, 2017, is a date remembered alongside Hurricane Katrina’s landfall on Aug. 29, 2005. Feb. 7 is when an EF-3 tornado ripped off roofs and tore down the walls of homes, rendering many families homeless for the second time in 11 years.

Singing at Mass surely had to have fostered the Catholic faith of the Ursuline nuns who came to New Orleans in 1727 as missionary educators of girls in French Louisiana. But now music historians can speculate that some of those hymns might also have helped to alleviate the sisters’ homesickness, having been set to familiar secular tunes originally composed in their native France.

In the blink of an eye, the reality of the “battle” hit home with Father Beau Charbonnet, pastor of St. Angela Merici Parish in Metairie. Two young men had died of drug overdoses in quick succession, and as the spiritual shepherd of a suburban parish that might be considered economically advantaged and relatively carefree, Father Charbonnet was both puzzled and convicted.

From left to right: Mike Abbate, AOL Council 9623 Grand Knight; and George Becnel, district deputy, with the winners.  Not pictured is Janivy Ayestas, Alexander Melancon and Aysia  Brown of  Ascension of Our Lord 9623 Council.

St. Scholastica Athletic Signing Class participated in a signing ceremony Feb. 7 in the gym. Pictured, from left to right:  Zoe Perrin, Samford University, soccer; Riley DeLaval, Fairleigh Dickinson University, softball; Brogan Bernadas, Southeastern Louisiana University, soccer; Grace Riley, Spring Hill College, soccer; Molly McHale, Louisiana State University, cross country/track and field; and Gabbie Angelle, Louisiana State University, soccer.

During his nearly half-century as a Catholic high school music teacher, disciplinarian and elementary school principal, Bobby Ohler stressed teamwork and rowing in the same direction, a harmonic convergence that characterized his vocation as an educator and his after-hours avocation as a cornet player, in, as Frank Sinatra would plaintively sing, “the wee, small hours of the morning.”

In February, across the United States, Americans celebrate Black History Month. The celebration actually started in 1926. February was chosen because it is the birth month of two of the most important figures in African-American history – President Abraham Lincoln (Feb. 12) and Frederick Douglass (Feb. 14).

The city of New Orleans celebrated Mardi Gras Feb. 13 with a nod to the 300-year-old city’s Catholic roots. Five floats in Rex, which has been parading since 1872, had Catholic themes, including: