Gilberte reports that the Mother of Jesus told her and the other children who saw her to be good. At some later time Mary says something like, “Are you really good?”. What does it mean to be good? And what about the dialectic of competing theories of ‘the good’, ‘well being’, ‘happiness’ and how these issues relate to public policy and political and social arrangements?

I pray a novena to Saint Thérèse of Lisieux almost every night. I believe that I would not know Thérèse as I do without Joe, although I am sure that Joe had never heard of her. I woke up with a song playing in my head this morning and I could not turn it off. The song belongs in the repertoire of Joe and Thérèse, a song for Joe.