We Are All Called to Lives of Holiness
There are periods in our lives that feel like a raging storm. The winds swirl up at high speeds, the clouds darken to a night sky mid-day, and rain pours down. The torrential downpour comes in unrelenting waves and we feel like St. Peter standing in the boat staring in fear and awe at Our Lord …
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A good many of us live busy lives. This busyness can become burdensome as we pack our days with activities, work requirements, family engagements, and especially during periods of illness or suffering. Our service to our families and our neighbors can become a source of resentment, exhaustion, and spiritual malaise. This is precisely why Our Lord …
Continue reading "Catholic Exchange: Learning Balance Alongside St. Martha"
During Advent and now the Christmas season, I have tried to spend time each day meditating on the first chapter of Matthew’s Gospel and the first two chapters of Luke’s Gospel. These three chapters are packed with significant events, responses, and depth on the part of the people involved and their encounter with God. Within …
Continue reading "Catholic Exchange: Let Christmas Teach Us to Make Haste in the Spiritual Life"
We are now in the final days of Advent. These last days are a good time to fully prepare ourselves for the coming of Our Lord at Christmas. If we have not taken the time to enter into prayerful quiet, now is a good time to do so. If we do not enter into the …
Continue reading "Catholic Exchange: What Will We Give Jesus for His Birthday?"
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"
Today is the beginning of the Pray More Advent retreat which is entirely online. There are talks from multiple speakers on a wide variety of topics. I was blessed to participate as a speaker. My talks are on St. John Paul II and the Eucharist, St. Therese, persevering in holiness, and the strangeness of how …
Continue reading "Don’t Forget the Pray More Advent Retreat Starts Today!"
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. …
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A Trump victory, if anything, only slowed down the speeding train of our secular culture. Lord willing, Catholics and other like-minded people will be given a reprieve after the last 8 years of open attacks and vilification by the Obama Administration and his fellow ideologues. Christian businesses have been destroyed, sisters working to help the …
Continue reading "The Election is Over: It’s Time to Stop Being Lukewarm Catholics"
In a Fallen world where suffering abounds: What is the Christian answer to suffering and uncertainty? What is it we have been given in the face of pain, sorrow, uncertainty, and agony in our lives and the world? The answer is the supernatural virtue of hope. The Christian life is one lived in hope, no …
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Swimming the Depths 