Spirituality

This stage of my life is motherhood. As a mom of three children under the age of 9, it’s a busy life. It’s often thankless, needy, and there is little time to catch my breath. It can be consuming. If you’re like me, I’m not great at my…

Most feast days of the saints celebrate the day the saint died, went to heaven, and stayed put. Lazarus Saturday celebrates the opposite. It is the day Our Lord summoned his friend back to this life, despite four days and several spools of…

Holy Week and the Notre Dame Cathedral fire teach the same lesson: Tragedy exists to teach us faith and heroism. It’s right there in Sacred Scripture, in the letter of St. Jude. First, though: A lot of people have shared a lot of lessons…

We collapsed into chairs at the kitchen table with tall glasses of ice water. Unwinding after a long, brisk walk around the park, we chatted casually, two college roommates catching up on life. Soon our light discussion turned more serious.…

These days we are used to our confessions being entirely private matters between only ourselves and our priests. Any penance we perform we usually keep to ourselves. Seldom do we directly tell others about the sins we needed to have…

My path of discerning a religious vocation was a journey from an intellectual knowledge of God to a unique and personal relationship with him. God planted many of the seeds of my vocation through FOCUS, the Fellowship of Catholic University…

St. Zacchaeus has one of the greatest conversion stories of all time, so much so that the Eastern Church gives him his own Sunday. Falling this year on Feb. 3, it is the first harbinger of a new pascal cycle. Remember how I told you last…

St. Malachi (Mal-a-kai) is a member of the minor prophets club of the Old Testament. Placed alongside Obadiah and Habakkuk, his name seems quite normal. Before I get started, this Malachi is not to be confused with the 12th century Irish…

Having a melancholic temperament makes forgiving others quite a feat. As a child, I was sensitive to jesting, even if it was done in a lighthearted and impersonal matter. Because of my insecurities and bottled up shame, I internalized…

I served for a year as a volunteer chaplain in a hospital in Colorado. As I went from room to room to offer conversation, prayer, and the Blessed Sacrament, I met people from all kinds of backgrounds, from a Hollywood set designer and a…