Today the Church celebrates the feast of St. Athanasius of Alexandria who is a Doctor of the Church, as well as a great theologian who united the Eastern and Western Churches. A great deal of his work and mission was responding to the Arian heresy running rampant in his day. In fact, the Arian heresy …
Living as a Resurrection People
It is now the Octave of Easter. We will celebrate Easter Sunday for eight days and the Easter season for fifty days. It is Easter, not Christmas, which are the highest, holiest, and most important days of the year. Without the Resurrection and the Paschal Mystery of Our Lord there would be no Church and …
Christ Desires Mercy and Charity
This past Sunday, the Fifth Sunday of Lent, we once again heard the Gospel passage about the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11). She was thrown in the dirt, cursed and condemned; a reminder of the division and destruction of sin. The Mosaic Law called for her stoning and many people stood over her willing …
Life is Full of Waiting Right Now
My husband and I are in a time of waiting, which is appropriate for this Lenten season. The doctors have still not found the cause for why my dad is so sick and so we wait, try not to worry (super hard), and leave it to God's loving care. We are also in the middle …
The Peace in Leaving Facebook Behind
I have written multiple blog posts about my increased understanding that I needed to give up Facebook. I only rarely used Twitter and saw it as an overwhelming amount of information with absolutely no real human connection. It is a place to vent political ideology in 140 characters, and that largely includes Catholic writers too. Facebook was …
Strange Beauty in Art and Life: The Agony in the Garden
Today I am waiting for my dad to undergo some medical tests to see why he is so sick and whether or not it is life-threatening. Ever since I got word last week that my dad's chronic illness was not the cause of his weakness and he is bleeding internally, I have been thinking and contemplating the …
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The Cardinal Virtues: The Queenship of Prudence
The moral life has been hampered greatly by the prevalence of both nominalism (a system based on opposition) and a system of morality based on obligation over charity. For the first 1500 years of the Church, the moral life was seen as the movement of grace within the individual who then strives to live the …
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Giving Up the Blog
I have been in a major pruning phase lately. If I don't need it, or if it is not adding to my already heavy workload, then it needs to be cut. I wrote a blog yesterday on The Responsibility of Catholic Writers and I once again started to consider my own place as a writer. …
Letters from Homeschool: Jumping from Preschool to Kindergarten
Last month I formally, well, semi-formally, started to home-school my 4 year old daughter. We did letter crafts and other activities over the past year, but it wasn't a set curriculum I was using. I had decided to order the Catholic Heritage Curriculum for Pre-school to get us started. The set came with what we …
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Monday Beauty Theme: Quiet Places
The last few days have been very busy. I have been going almost non-stop. We also found out that my brother-in-law is very sick with what appears to be meningitis. So it's been a hectic and disconcerting time. When I sat down to do this week's beauty theme the word that came to me was: …
Swimming the Depths 