We Are All Called to Lives of Holiness
The Solemnity of the Ascension of Our Lord oftentimes is an understated event in the Church’s liturgical year. We profess the reality of this historical and supernatural event each Sunday as we profess the Creed. It is a significant event, in fact, it is the climax before He sends the Paraclete. In returning to the …
Continue reading "Catholic Exchange: The Ascension and Our Journey Home"
Today the Church celebrates the great Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. It is the day we celebrate how Our Heavenly Mother was the first to receive the merits of her Divine Son’s Paschal Mystery. Unlike us, she was conceived without the taint of Eve’s sin coursing through her. Do we contemplate this great mystery? What …
Continue reading "Catholic Exchange: The Freedom of Mary’s Immaculate Conception"
In many of our cultures the Christmas season is in full swing. It is the version of Christmas when we are told to buy more things and to accumulate as many material possessions as we can for ourselves and others. This is an understandable mentality in wealthier nations, only because we have been inundated with …
Continue reading "Catholic Exchange: Advent-Our Hope is Not in This World"
The creative impulse is a deeply rooted aspect of the human person because we are made imago Dei and God is the Creator. This desire to share in the creative action of God is evidenced by thousands of years in which art, architecture, and the written word have been shaped in endless ways. We are …
Anyone who has been reading my blog over the last couple of years knows that I battle being addicted to Facebook. Yes, addicted. I think a lot of people are addicted, but we don't like to admit it, myself included. Social media is a part of the post-modern experience. At face value it is indeed …
Continue reading "Confronting Hard Truths About Facebook and Myself"
This Sunday the Church begins her new liturgical year with the season of Advent. In the hustle and bustle of the secular Christmas season, it is an often-overlooked season. It is a time when the Church calls us as our Mother to enter into the silence and hope of waiting. Many of us live in …
Continue reading "Catholic Exchange: Preparing Our Hearts and Minds for Advent"
Advent is an often overlooked season within the Church because it coincides with the secular preparation for Christmas. The Church does not enter into the Christmas season until Christmas Eve vigil. The busyness of life can get in the way of entering into the beautiful season of waiting for the Christ-child and the Second Coming. …
Continue reading "Looking for an Advent Retreat You Can Do at Home?"
I will admit that after I wrote about leaving Facebook again, I struggled to deactivate. That is until God knocked me upside the head. This is the "letter" I wrote to my Facebook friends, many of whom have been very important to me at various times in my life. To My Dear Facebook Friends, …
Continue reading "Holiness: What Really Helped Me Leave Facebook, Again"
My daughter is my greatest teacher. This seems strange in a world where children are reduced to a means to an end or even viewed primarily as accessories. In the West, children are something we have on our own terms. They do not exist for their own sake; they only exist if we will it. …
Continue reading "The Wisdom of Children and Hope in Suffering"
During this Lenten season we are called to examine our lives more closely in light of our relationship with Christ and His Church. Fasting, prayer, and almsgiving bring us deeper into the mysteries of Christ and our own journey to holiness. Lent is also a time to draw closer to the Sacraments, especially the Holy …
Continue reading "Frequent Confession, the Eucharist, and the Need for Conversion"
Swimming the Depths 