(I am attempting to give up waxing poetically for Lent. So here is my post, short and simple, with no poetic waxing. Promise.) Joy. It is all really so simple. It is a hit-yourself-in-the-forehead kind of simplicity. God wants us…
Be Joyful and Shine Joyful
St. Joseph: Wonder Worker
I pray to St. Joseph every single day. Someone once said to me that St. Joseph actually had it pretty hard in his house. He sat down at the dinner table between the Incarnate Word and the Immaculate Conception; if…
Confessions of a Former Tabloid Writer
What do O.J. Simpson, the Bachelorette, Charlie Sheen, and Angeline Jolie all have in common? The tabloids love them. On the way to the grocery store checkout, one cannot help but notice headlines flashing the latest scandals. If the high…
What’s the Role of the Laity?
I was given a review copy of Catholic Laity in the Mission of the Church: Living Out Your Lay Vocation by Russell Shaw. I looked at the cover: a blob of faceless people dressed the same, doing no-skill-no-brains heavy lifting,…
Spiritual Cross Training
If you’re looking for a new way to pray, Catholic spirituality is simply brimming [overflowing!] with set prayers, specific patterns for prayer, and more. There’s the Liturgy of the Hours, the first century practice of praying the Our Father three…
Resolution in the Abstract
I am not qualified to write this article. I will freely admit that up front, lest anyone accuse me of presenting a better picture of myself than what is found in reality. But truth is truth and the truth is…
The Grateful-for-Adversity Grandmother
Have you ever been grateful for something negative that happened to you? Well, maybe not while it’s happening. A friend of mine is a classic doting grandmother. Nothing fills her with joy more than a visit from her baby grandson,…
Become a Child of Christ
I’ve always loved today’s Gospel, and I like to give my imagination lots of room to run as I visualize what it must have been like to be one of the children with Jesus that day. Most commentaries focus on…
Clarity
You hear it a lot. You hear it in contract negotiation, in teaching, in foreign policy, in the writing of treaties and agreements. Clarity. People speak about “clarity” all of the time. We aim for it, we wish for it…
My Rosary, My Salvation
Last summer while visiting with my brother and his family at his cottage in Eastern Ontario, we decided to visit a historical Catholic Church at a nearby picturesque town and take in an afternoon Mass. I asked him if we…