It is Holy Week, the week of Christ’s Passion, the darkest week of Lent which precedes the Easter dawn.
A Lenten Romance
A solitary question persists in the human heart, the one our very souls hang upon, the simple and profound: “Do you love me?"
Christmas Present
How many innkeepers will turn You away, again this Christmas, send You back into the winter cold with a "no room here" shrug?
Getting Through “No”
I have rules because I love you; because I love you, I have rules.
Beloved
My soul pleases Him. It pleases Him the same way a child’s drawing delights a parent; it is not perfect…
One Sinner Who Repents
It’s as if a dirty filter in my soul had just been replaced, as if I have a pure, spotless soul—if only for a moment.
To Become Like a Child
For who can overlook the wonder, joy, order and beauty of their simple world?
Pride: A Spiritual Disease
Pride is no cause to celebrate. It is a spiritual illness, a deadly form of the cancer of sin, which threatens the human soul
Father, Forgive Them
His work in the human heart is so beautiful, and so hidden. For in the loving hands of God, every evil is repurposed for some great good, for the ongoing conversion and reform of the sinner’s heart—our own included.
The Lent of Our Discontent
Will we not try to remove even one, small thorn or cushion wedged between His heart and ours? Or will we turn away, refuse the difficulty of gazing upon the beaten, bleeding Jesus in His time of greatest need?
Holiday Anxiety
Our anxiety often surges and peaks just before Christmas. So much to do, so much to do, the panic insists, growing visible by the day...
The Eucharist: Food as Medicine
Eating has always been an intimate, nourishing act. And just as God gives us food to eat for the good of our body, so He also gives us food to eat for the good of our soul.
The Divine Maternity
Before Jesus poured Himself out for the world, Mary poured herself out for Him—drop by drop—as a loving and faithful mother does…
Thoughts on Love in an Age of Imitation
We like to think that we Love.
But apart from God, we are utterly incapable of Love’s exchange. Only Jesus on the cross shows us Love, in its complete, unfiltered reality…
Caring for a Child’s Spiritual Needs (Part 2): WONDER + AWE
I sometimes forget how readily children can enter into the spiritual mysteries. It is much easier for children to connect with God than it is for us adults.
Read More >>>
Mothers: Closer to Christ (Part 3)
We are not Christ, we do not love perfectly. We drop, avoid, offload and resent the cross of motherhood. We choose self—over service, over child, over Christ. We “play the martyr” mother, lacking the right interior disposition or loving attitude, and so our sacrifice comes out sideways. We do our share of wounding, even unintentionally.
Mothers: Closer to Christ (Part 2)
Pregnancy is a mother’s first cross, first opportunity to unite herself to Christ by way of His Passion. For in pregnancy, we—like Christ—are called to give our very own flesh and blood for the sake of the stranger who is also our beloved child.
Mothers: Closer to Christ (Part 1)
God has made us mothers a juncture between heaven and earth. From our very bodies, the tunnel of life extends. For a sacred second, a mother is permitted to house the presence of God the Creator—the Author and Owner of all human life…
I Do Not Fear Death
On a day I cannot control, nor predict, my breath will cease.
My body will collapse, will remain behind to be caked in earth, as my soul is catapulted into the immortal world, the afterworld, the realm of heaven and hell, God and Satan.
Thoughts on the Holy Family
Jesus, Mary and Joseph served God perfectly by serving each other. They were so fixated on doing what was best for each other that they forgot to arrange things to their own preference.