If it’s Monday, then my son is hearing the same refrain from me: “If you keep your bedroom clean this week, you get a pack of baseball cards.” On Sunday I check his room, and if it’s clean, he gets his pack of baseball cards. If it’s not clean…then he gets a pack of baseball…
I spend an inordinate amount of time cleaning up other people’s messes. When I became a stay-at-home mother eleven years ago, nobody told me how much of my life would revolve around doing just that. There were tasks I expected – making meals, doing laundry and putting it away, reading to the children, even changing diapers. But the…
CHECK IT OUT: You can listen to this post as a mini podcast – available exclusively on this page: In a discussion with one of our writers this morning, I mentioned the absolute glut of Church news. He responded, “Reading the headlines at Pewsitter these days is like trying to bat away a thousand bricks.”…
Want to listen to this post instead? The audio is available here: I am a member of a spiritual association which requires the recitation of certain prayers each day. And each day, one section of the prayers is substituted with another, focusing on a different aspect of the spiritual life. On Fridays, the members say…
This is the third installment of a multi-part series. You may find each part here: Part I – Part II – Part III A Book of Hours was the essential guide to devotion for a literate Catholic layman of the late Middle Ages, from the late 14th century to the early 16th. Its content was essentially liturgical, but selected with…
CHECK IT OUT: You can listen to this post as a mini podcast – available exclusively on this page: Well, here we are again at the end of another week that has moved with break-neck speed. Lots of stories. Too many to cover. Some links and highlights: Nearly 1,000 US priests have now signed a letter asking…
I arrive at the Mission, having driven past the casino and its glittering billboard, stucco and neon mixing garishly among the saguaro. I’ve come to take pictures of this beautiful but challenging monument, indulging my photographic interest in a place rich in Catholic tradition that I have somehow never heard of before coming to this…
Flashy billboards, provocative dress and apparel, Hollywood fashions spread far and wide, suggestive innuendos, off-color jokes, indecent movies, and the ever-present danger of the Internet, seducing souls into visit the numerous and poisonous websites—all of these and a plethora of other alluring and seductive temptations can trap even the best of us into falling into the…
Infinite is the one great mystery of Christian faith. The more men ponder over its parts the more bewildering it appears, for the mystery of the Triune God is continually upholding its hidden power. How grandly impressive is Catholic worship! What an awful holocaust is its sacrifice! Far surpassing the power of human concept is the…
In my recent post, “What About the Rest of Bishop Finn’s Story”, I discussed the ideological and political dimensions of last week’s resignation of Bishop Robert Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. The motivation for the public relations campaign against Bishop Finn was clearly stated by former diocesan chancellor Jude Huntz when he…
The following editorial by Father Peter Stravinskas, Ph.D., S.T.D., appears in the current (May/June) issue of The Catholic Response magazine. It is posted here with Father’s permission. When the Extraordinary Synod on the Family was announced and when it concluded, I promised our readers ongoing reflections on the Church’s understanding of marriage and the family, particularly…
