It was my mother who decided I would be a priest. I heard this beginning early in my childhood. It was the greatest vocation one could hope for in life. There was no greater glory for a mother than to "give her son to the church." I speculated that my mother had given me birth with the specific hope of passing me on to the church.
There was a mother in our congregation at St. Patrick's, Mrs. Wuellner, who had achieved the enviable distinction of giving two sons to the church, Fathers Frank and George, and these two good men came once to visit us at our home, possibly to inspire me.
My father, raised as a Lutheran, attended St. Patrick's only on such occasions as midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. I remember sitting in a front pew with my First Communion class and noticing Father McGinn glancing toward the back of the church.
There was a mother in our congregation at St. Patrick's, Mrs. Wuellner, who had achieved the enviable distinction of giving two sons to the church, Fathers Frank and George, and these two good men came once to visit us at our home, possibly to inspire me.
My father, raised as a Lutheran, attended St. Patrick's only on such occasions as midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. I remember sitting in a front pew with my First Communion class and noticing Father McGinn glancing toward the back of the church.
- 7/18/2010
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
I said the other day my first professional newspaper job was as a sports writer. It was the autumn of 1958, and I was writing for the high school paper. Urbana High sports were being covered for The News-Gazette by a young writer named Dick Saunders, who was promoted and asked to "name his own successor." How grand that sounds! He liked my stuff and hired me at The News-Gazette for, as I said, 75 cents an hour. To see my byline in print in a real paper for the first time was an experience not unlike winning the Pulitzer Prize. Better, probably.
You understand local sports were a big deal because the twin cities of Urbana and Champaign had a ferocious cross-town rivalry, and the University of Illinois brought the Big Ten to town. On weekends, I was assigned to cover the university swimming team, wrestling team, and so on, and...
You understand local sports were a big deal because the twin cities of Urbana and Champaign had a ferocious cross-town rivalry, and the University of Illinois brought the Big Ten to town. On weekends, I was assigned to cover the university swimming team, wrestling team, and so on, and...
- 5/11/2008
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
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