Touching lives with compassion and God’s presence is what Genny and Chubby Marks and other extraordinary ministers of holy Communion do during weekly visits with the homebound in St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Metairie.

Excitement is mounting in the local faith community – and not just among Catholics – about the impending Blessed John Paul II Exhibit “I Have Come to You Again” scheduled to stop in New Orleans Feb. 4-May 11, 2013, at Notre Dame Seminary’s Schulte Hall.

Bowling shoes once worn by Tom Cruise cling to a wall high above the entrance corridor inside Mid-City Lanes, just left of the alley’s blue-lit statue of the Blessed Mother.

For the 14th year, members of the Archdiocesan Sidewalk Counseling and Prayer Ministry and approximately 275 others met May 12 outside a Metairie clinic known for performing abortions and prayed 20 decades of the rosary in the annual Mother’s Day Crusade for Life.