Last month I opened a thorny topic that had been posed to me by a fellow Catholic: How do I evangelize when my local parish is mired in dissent or disorder? My answer was built around how to think about…
Why are we still waiting?
In the old version of the mass, the priest would invite us to proclaim the mystery of faith, and we would sing: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. The first sentence is in the past tense. …
Endings
On the last day of 2012 the readings of the Church gave us an odd juxtaposition. The first reading from the first letter of John (2:18-19) continues the “preparation” warnings of Advent. We are cautioned, “it is the last hour.”…
The “gift” of a mother’s tears
It seems odd that shortly after celebrating our Lord’s birth, we are thrown into Lent commemorating His passion, death, and resurrection. I remember our late pastor saying that sometimes your Lent comes after a loved one dies. Sometimes your Lent…
Until God Opens the Next Door, Praise Him in the Hallway
I remember watching The Sound of Music as a little girl on television right around Easter. Yep, that was back in the pre-historic days, the days before DVDs or even VHS. The one line that always stuck with me was…
A Little Epiphany
Over the years as I’ve studied the Bible, I–along with others in my Bible Study group–have wondered, “Why didn’t the Israelites of the Old Testament get it? And if they had where would be be today?” Recently I had an…
Compromising Our Values
There is a lot of pressure from mainstream society for the Catholic Church to begin compromising our values. Should we give in to this mounting pressure? Our goal is to evangelize and bring as many souls to Christ as possible,…
Being a Whole Saint
St. Therese, the Little Flower, once said that a person “cannot be half a saint. We must be a whole saint or no saint at all.” Only the most obtuse will deny that most people in this world would be…
Evangelizing Your Spouse
Shortly after we were married, Mike and I invited some old friends to visit. One of them, a former choir mate of Mike’s named Bill, took me aside. ““Tell me,” he said, “how did you get Mike to be so…Catholic?”…
Intimacy in the Virtual Age
Living in the technology age can be enticing at times. As a mother of four young children whose noise levels rise immediately whenever another human body gets within a two-mile vicinity of our home, the idea of conducting my day-to-day…