Featured Stories

“The Catholic Week,” the official publication of the Archdiocese of Mobile, received five awards June 19 from the Catholic Media Association of the United States and Canada during the Catholic Media Conference in Atlantic City, N.J. The awards recognized work published in 2025.

You may have heard the phrase, “The Pilgrim Church on earth” when praying the Prayers of the Faithful at Mass or in other Mass texts. This phrase states the reality of who we are as Church and where we are going. We are pilgrims on earth and as pilgrims, we are on a journey to our true home—with God forever in heaven. I am especially aware of being a pilgrim when we pray the Our Father. We pray, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” While on pilgrimage, we are intentional pilgrims, praying in oneness with Jesus. Through the Lord’s Prayer and by the grace of the Lord we grow His kingdom of holiness and truth—a kingdom of justice and peace on earth as it is in heaven. We conform our will to God’s will of love, striving for kingdom living—a life that leads to the Kingdom of Heaven. The goodness of heaven is fostered in our earthly mission and pilgrimage.

Teachers and children alike rejoice as school is out for the summer. We all welcome a change in pace even if that just means lighter traffic for our morning commute. Graduation celebrations give way to summer schedules, family vacations begin filling the calendar and many of us look forward to a slower pace after a busy spring. Even though camps, travel plans, weddings and time away fill our schedule, summer can also become a sacred invitation to rediscover God’s presence in the ordinary moments of life.

We celebrate the upcoming 250th anniversary of the independence of our nation. We celebrate, as sung in our national anthem, being “the land of the free.” This is certainly a patriotic celebration, but also a religious celebration.

Long before Deacon Gaten Armstrong was preparing for priesthood, two seminarians assigned to Montgomery parishes spent a summer beating him in basketball while talking trash and also talking discernment.