To be perfectly honest, we were feeling pretty good about things. As part of the diaconate formation in our diocese, each candidate is required to
Beginnings and endings, finite measures of years meted out for us again and again, season after season, generation after generation, age after age—all amount to
In this series of posts HOW TO FIND FAITH AT THE MOVIES, John invites readers to take a hero’s journey in search of faith through
They come to your door, or stand outside Wal-Mart, fresh faced, smiling little girls, selling their cookies. It’s an image as American as apple pie,
Edith Stein was an admirer of St. Thomas Aquinas, and like Aquinas, she understood that words mean things, but they do not always mean them unambiguously. President Bill Clinton, for example, testified that what he
Albino assassin monks, secret Bible books, pagan Santas and secret councils—this is a series about popular culture claims related to Catholicism. If you have a
As secular society brushes off Christmas for another year, Catholics know very well that Christmas never truly ends because, at the end of the day,
This is the fourth in a six-part series on Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI’s profound and heroic 1968 encyclical. The series’ introduction is here. The
During a recent homily, the priest told a story that I feel is extremely profound and important for today, perhaps even more so than he
Yes, I decorated Saint Patrick’s Church for Christmas. Not Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan, or Old Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on Mulberry Street down in Soho,
A few weeks ago, a Facebook friend posted the article \”Everyone\’s a Biblical Literalist Until You Bring Up Gluttony\” by Rachel Held Evans to her
I have been slow in reading Pope Francis\’ Letter Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) on the New Evangelization. Thankfully, there are movements in the Catholic
I’ve been writing and blogging my way through life and faith at Just Showing Up for close to eight years now. What began as a free
Like everyone else I make New Year\’s resolutions every year. Some years are better than others, but I have yet to complete a year with
As parenting goes, the Lord knows I\’ve done a lot of things wrong. But there are a few things I\’ve done right. After mulling over my
Pope Francis shakes me up. Not in a worldly, materialistic way like when I lost my twenty dollar subway and bus pass last week, or
The Pew Research Center recently released a report, Celebrating Christmas and the Holidays, Then and Now, that offers a revealing look at the growing secularism
“The laws of nature are written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics.” Galileo Galilei “Certain it is that a conviction, akin
What is the American equivalent of what the Russian’s called a Gulag? A familiar word to Americans, because of our cold war relations with the
On November 26, 2013, I uttered words that still echo in my mind, words which felt true even if everything that followed refuted that feeling.
In the Old Testament, the Azazel goat, translated as scapegoat, was one of two goats chosen for a ceremony on The Day of Atonement. The
“It’s my life!” a teenager rants. “Then, turning to the talk show host he explains, “That is why I should have the right to kill
