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IRONDALE, Ala. – While working as a successful lawyer and senior partner in his firm, Deacon Bill Steltemeier saw a flier on “sounding the call to holiness” at a church in the Chicago suburbs near a legal convention he was attending in 1978. Deacon Steltemeier, now CEO of Eternal Word Television Network, was tired and there was a blizzard outside, but he felt compelled to try to go to the program. After running out of gas and almost turning around, he finally found the church by accident and was surprised by the message he heard.

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI, meeting the parents of a 4-year-old British girl apparently kidnapped while the family was on vacation in Portugal, blessed a photograph of the little girl and offered his prayers. Kate and Gerry McCann, the Catholic parents of Madeleine, who has been missing since May 3, met the pope at the end of his weekly general audience May 30 in St. Peter’s Square. When they handed him the photograph, the pope caressed it.

Richard Gross thinks golf is a good activity for a couple to do together. His wife, Lois, added “and Meals on Wheels.” Although she has no interest in golf, the 78-year-old has a 33-year vested loyalty to the program which delivers hot and cold meals to senior citizens who have difficulty cooking, getting to the grocery store, and who have no one to do it for them. “The good Lord means for this program to go,” said the bright-eyed Mrs. Gross, who serves on the board of directors and the Council of Sites of Meals on Wheels. The program must be very organized, she said. As the responsible party for beginning the Glen Burnie kitchen in 1976, the parishioner of Holy Trinity in Glen Burnie considers herself a professional volunteer. “We’ve become old people serving old people,” said Mrs. Gross, who, with her husband, has six children, 27 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

CUMBERLAND – As soon as the last words of the closing prayer were uttered at the end of a recent morning Mass at St. Mary in Cumberland, they descended like an earnest horde of bees. Carrying buckets, feather dusters, cloths, vacuum cleaners and more, a team of seniors ranging in age from 62-92, set to work attacking dust and dirt without wasting a minute. Some polished brass handrails on their knees while others stretched on tiptoes to wave feathers at tall candlesticks. Still others pushed roaring vacuums, cleaned votive candles or tidied bathrooms. Theasa Gray, the senior-most volunteer at 92, was busy dust-mopping the altar steps when she paused to explain why she does it. “We just enjoy doing it and someone has to do it,” she said.

When JoAnn Huebler and her family found a remote control boat named “Poppy” they knew it would make a perfect gift for her father, Joe Danneman, because his five grandchildren call him “Poppy.” “He loves it,” she said of her father, a former Navy man and a Catholic who serves as usher in the nondenominational chapel at Oak Crest, a retirement community in Parkville, where he lives and where Mrs. Huebler is a retirement counselor. After Mr. Danneman’s stroke, his family thought operating the boat would be good for his motor skills. Consequently, he joined The Blue Heron Yacht Club on the campus.