Lino Rulli, never short on sarcasm, has spent a lifetime making people laugh: It’s fair to presume that his sense of humor has gotten him into trouble just as often as it’s gotten him out of it. As host of The Catholic Guy, a show that blends comedy and Catholicism, Lino can nail a one-liner and, in the same breath, discuss uptight Catholics or meatless Fridays.

We are standing on an overlook at Bethlehem University. I am admiring a sweeping highway bridge across an expansive valley. My Palestinian guide, Sami El-Yousef, explains that the distant highway, essentially a road to allow Israelis to bypass the checkpoints of the Palestinian territory, where Bethlehem is, was paid for by U.S. dollars.

One of the most popular teen stars on television, now the proud grandmother of six, Oscar winner Patty Duke, 68, is enjoying her sixth decade as a professional actor. Happily ensconced in the northern Idaho home she shares with her husband of 29 years, Michael Pearce, she is grateful for both her past successes and her present joys.

No longer satisfied with going through the motions of Mass, many young Catholics across the country gather to celebrate and invigorate. Theology-on-Tap quenches two thirsts at once.

Bret Baier, anchor of Special Report, the 6 p.m. nightly news on the FOX News Channel, isn’t averse to puns on his name. In his first book, Special Heart, released this past June, he writes about the Three Baiers: Papa Baier; Mama Baier for his wife, Amy; and Baby Baier for his son, Paul. Such plays on a word might be an unconscious wish that the family’s recent history was just a fairy tale. Instead, it involved dealing with a dark realityÑthe possibility of Baby Baier’s death.

Nobody likes to wait, and yet waiting is a part of life. We wait at the DMV or the grocery store checkout, in line at the post office to mail Christmas packages, for an appointment, a diagnosis, a resolution, a solution, an opportunity, the light at the end of the tunnel, a birth, a death.