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ICA, Peru – The evening before his 12th birthday, Denis Sulca stood near the end of a line of more than 100 children, hoping for a ration of milk. Eight days earlier, Aug. 15, a magnitude 8 earthquake destroyed the adobe house where his family lived in a shantytown in this city of about 300,000 people on Peru’s southern coast. “We’re sleeping in a tent in the street,” said Denis, the oldest of six children. “My little brothers are sick.”

In a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the Archbishop Curley cross country team, four seniors took part in a wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Va., on Aug. 16. On that drizzly day, the four Friar senior runners, Tim Skarda, Pat Hairfield, Jonathan Sobczynski and Kevin Sommers, were chosen by Coach Gene Hoffman to serve as their four representatives to present the wreath, with 15 of their teammates on hand to line the walkway as “Taps” was played by the Honor Guard. But the weather had no bearing on the effect of this experience. Gene Hoffman, who is in his 31st year as head coach said, “To hear the Honor Guard announce that the wreath that honors this tomb was supplied by Archbishop Curley High School gave me chills.”

John E. Berg pointed into the distance ahead of him where the “old” cemetery could be seen on the slope of a hill on the 45-acres that encompass the parish of St. Joseph in Fullerton. “My great-grandparents are buried there,” said St. Joseph’s maintenance supervisor who, together with three full-time staff members, cares for the buildings and grounds of one of the largest parishes in the archdiocese with a membership of some 4,500 households. In the foreground lies the newer cemetery, and it is there that Mr. Berg’s grandparents and parents are buried. “And I’ll be buried there too,” he said. “My wife, Lois and I have plots here.”

WASHINGTON – Girls often dream of saying “I do” at the altar to their future spouse. Katrina Gredona hopes she’ll be saying those words to Jesus as a religious sister. “When I look at a community of religious women, I see women who contribute fruitfully to the church and to the world in a very special way and in a very essential way, and I think that’s exciting,” said Gredona, a student at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. Ten years ago, Gredona’s interest in religious life would have been unique in comparison with the majority of other Catholic girls, as reports indicated a decline in the number of religious sisters in the United States. But recently campus ministers and the vocations directors of some women’s religious communities have been noticing a new trend of more young women looking into religious life.