Catholic. Pastoral. Trusted.
April 2013 "Doing one thing every day may not change the world, but will change us." On Easter Sunday, anything seems possible. The triumph of life over death and heaven over hell seems to resound throughout a world poised on the cusp of spring. But it’s hard to hold on...
March 2013 In the absence of clarity, the only way to hold the course is to stay in touch with the One who sees the big picture. Prayer is the foundation of a lived faith. Sometimes I think past generations had an easier time following God. The Israelites had the...
March 2013 In 100 years, the world will be different, but people will still try to make sense of it. What will be around to guide them? Who will be there to walk with them? A century ago, a group of Redemptorists teaching in a Wisconsin major seminary decided to...
October 2012 This October, the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council provides an opportune moment to look back and see what the council had to say about Mary. The council didn’t produce a document solely about the Mother of God; however, it did speak about Mary’s...
We’re constantly amazed at what science tells us about the world. From the complexity of galaxies and solar systems to the intricacies of atomic particles, science explores the what and how of the universe. However, it humbly backs away from the questions of who the intelligence behind creation is and...
December 2012 I often wonder what Jesus was like in person. The Gospels, compiled decades after his death and resurrection from oral traditions filtered through hundreds of retellings, only give us a sketchy (and often—let’s face it—pretty dry) picture. We can guess with what awe the people who witnessed his miracles...
Silly me, I thought I was going to have to cook right after my first child was born. I didn’t know about the Postpartum Food Network. You know, the parade of adorers bringing buckets of pasta and trays of brownies—meals dripping with caloric goodness accompanied by miniature outfits in baby...
In November, the Church focuses on the “life to come” aspect of Christianity. Days that commemorate the communion of saints and the faithful departed launch us into the month. The feast of Christ the King, which proclaims that the redemptive work of God is destined to embrace the life of...
From the day the priest poured water over our babies’ heads and anointed them with chrism, my husband and I knew it was our responsibility to train them in the practice of the faith. The rite of baptism told us so. But it didn’t seem like big a deal. What’s...
Raising a family is hard work. Millions of small decisions make up the balancing act required to create a healthy home life for children. My hat’s off to the women and men who commit their lives to their families. They should take comfort in the Gospel’s reminders that even Jesus grew to maturity in the midst of the messiness of a home.
On a recent visit to my mother, I noticed a prayer posted on her refrigerator door: “Patient Trust,”* written by the French Jesuit philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. I stopped to read it closely, especially these stanzas:
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are, quite naturally, impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
I don’t know about you, but I find my nightly TV-viewing options rather uninspiring. It seems basic cable offers little more than crude sitcoms, so-called reality TV, and gruesome crime dramas. If an alien race tapped into our video streams to find out what sort of people inhabit Earth, they’d turn...
I turned 50 in May. When my physician informed me that I should steel myself for a gauntlet of medical tests, I added my voice to the chorus of people in and out of the health care industry asking, when does the testing get to be too much? When a...
May-June 2012 On Judgment Day, you will answer to FATHER GOD, not mother earth.” I saw this on a bumper sticker and was struck by the implication that we must choose between God and the environment. In our polarized political climate, encouraged by a sensationalist news ethos and a sound-bite culture,...
In 1990 South Africa, it was evident that political inequality had to change. Soon after President F. W. de Klerk made a speech to parliament in which he called for a nonracist South Africa, a joke started making the rounds: Two solutions were in front of the country, one practical and the...
March 2012 Every year the story of the transfiguration comes around on the second Sunday of Lent. It’s a familiar tale: Jesus and the disciples climb to a high place, and Jesus goes walking in the clouds with Moses and Elijah, his face so bright the disciples can’t even look...
February 2012 Conversion in a perfect world would be as easy as grabbing one sublime moment of divine insight and riding it all the way to heaven. But we don’t live in a fairy tale. Life in God cannot be static. No matter how long or how hard we try,...
January 2012 I come from a long line of storytellers—an uncle who can turn a nugget of memory into a family legend, a dad who wants everyone to understand “the rest of the story,” and a father-in-law whose favorite saying is “let me teach you something.” It’s a trait that has...
As we ring in this new year, we are given the opportunity to change our behaviors or attitudes. Catholics, of course, are encouraged to throw themselves wholeheartedly into this practice during Lent. However, counsel from all corners tells us there’s no time like the present to begin. So, too, with...
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.—Isaiah 9:1 Long nights. Short days. In my part of the world, it seems the sun is barely up before it starts to sink. We rise in the dark, do our evening chores in the dark. We live in the country,...
An old Chinese proverb says, “If your vision is for a year, plant wheat. If your vision is for ten years, plant trees. If your vision is for a lifetime, plant people.” To build a future, we must fill people with hope and equip them with the resources to get...