When my grandma turned 91, I remember her saying: “You can find joy in all stages of life.” That’s always stuck with me. I know it to be true in regards to getting older, but I also believe it to be true in relationship to the world: You can find joy in all...
It was December 24th, 2019, and I was on my way to Rochester, Minnesota to serve at the Christmas Vigil Mass at our co-Cathedral for my Bishop, John Quinn. I showed up early to get things set up, but I was distracted like a teenage boy trying to clean his room. My...
When you love someone, you don’t just hang out with them once a week for Friday night dates. You want to be with them, in person, every moment you can. You don’t need entertainment. You don’t always need to understand each other or even say much. You just want to be...
Today we mourn the loss of Pope Benedict XVI, a holy man of God who lived the faith well. May he rest in the arms of God for eternity! Read more about his life and be inspired by his legacy. Pope Benedict XVI Dies At The Age Of 95...
Living in the 4th century A.D., St. Ambrose was bishop of Milan during a tumultuous era of Church history. His road to ordination was an interesting journey. The sudden death of the current bishop of Milan in 374 A.D. left the bishop's seat open amid the climate of...
Imagine kneeling in a room with eleven-thousand college students. The lights are dim, and the spotlights follow the priest holding a Monstrance, walking through the aisles. The choir is singing the verse, “I give myself to you, Lord,” over and over again. People are...
These last twelve days for me as a British subject have been very strange ones. We have continued our ordinary lives, while all about us in the public sphere, momentous and solemn things have happened. The death of our Queen, the instantaneous transferral of symbolic...
Let us first look at scripture, the place a Christian must start. In the Old Testament we find “Let there not be found among you anyone who causes their son or daughter to pass through the fire, or practices divination, or is a soothsayer, augur, or sorcerer, or...
https://vimeo.com/642910917/510f2312a7 What do I do now? A question all families of loss ask themselves the day after the funeral. Family members are going back to work. The house is a mess. You have no energy and find...
It is estimated that 1 in 6 couples struggle to get pregnant. Infertility is often a hidden suffering, and is even considered a “normal,” albeit temporary, difficulty encountered in some marriages, but easily fixed if the couple...
Who is St. Charles Borromeo? Carlo Borromeo was born in Arona, Italy near Milan in 1538. He became a cardinal archbishop and was active in the Catholic Counter-Reformation (after the Protestant Reformation) in Italy. St. Charles Borromeo died at the age of 46 in 1584...
There has been a post circulating around Facebook and other places which begins “I’m not pro-murdering babies.” The post then presents various circumstances in which an abortion could be justified, in the view of the author. The problems with the post and many and...
It doesn’t take long when first discovering the world of natural family planning to realize that most couples have a love/hate relationship with NFP. The reasons to love it are obvious and the reasons to hate it are obvious. It is a strange mix of sweet...
I’m just not getting anything out of it! is a common cry for many who find church boring. For many raised Catholic, feelings of “not being fed” cause some to leave church altogether or at least find another Christian experience. Many go for churches that emphasize...
I was a postulant with the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity when I learned that there is a difference between being happy and being joyful. Up until then, I had thought the terms were interchangeable. Someone could be happy being able to see their friends. A...
I am, admittedly, a ‘cradle Catholic,’ who has experienced times of great closeness to the faith, and other times when I wandered, like a dog, who suddenly finds itself outside its familiar fence, and is anxious to sniff out what the world outside might be like. ...
How in the world do you help someone get to the point where they can confidently say they know Jesus? Like truly, authentically know Him? All year, I’ve asked the students I walk with in discipleship whether or not they know Jesus. Like truly, on an intimate level....
When the house in which J.R.R. Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit came up for sale, we decided it would be a good adventure to try to buy it with the support of his global fanbase. The aim is to turn it into the first literary centre in honour of the...
Imagine with me for a second: You’re standing on top of a 30-foot cliff, about to jump into a level 3 white-water rapid in Colorado…you hold the instructor’s hand as he attempts to console you...“just walk straight forward, pull your feet together as you fall, just...
St. Therese of Lisieux | Doctor of the Church St. Therese of Lisieux was born on January 2, 1873, and died on September 30, 1897. St. Therese of Lisieux was a French Discalced Carmelite nun, the same order founded by St. Teresa of Avila. Her religious name is St....
People do foolish things for love. Consider a wonderful Catholic girl I know who creeped away from her loving parents one night to join some neighborhood dude who had shamed his family by stealing from his own father, and then scandalized the whole town by flashing...
Three years ago, today, I published a blog about my personal struggle with pornography. Before that day, I had never spoken openly about porn, it was very much a secret problem that had been eating me up for years. More than anything else I have ever written, I look...
I wish I had always known God’s loving tenderness. I have been a Catholic all my life but it was only a year ago that I discovered a God who loves us with such magnitude that not only is He powerful, He is also tender, as a terrified new father, who stands in by the...
Homelessness goes deeper than not having a place to lay your head at night, and solving the problem of homelessness goes deeper than simply providing hot meals or houses. In this video, we see how one man was called by Christ to suffer-with the homeless and how that...
If you think Saint costumes are boring, think again! Check out these gory, gruesome, and horrifying costumes that will have your friends talking all night long. It's an interesting way to evangelize, but it just might work. 8 Scary Saint Costumes Saint Ursula - The...