I came across a picture today that I had received of my nephew on his first day of second grade. I was struck by his radiant smile and eyes shining with pride, purity, and eagerness as he faces another school year. He is being raised by his grandparents. Their adult daughter, my nephew’s mom, has chosen a very […]
I was recently at an arcade with my children when I encountered Sean, a young 12-year-old boy. He had approached my kids, who had nearly run out of money and tickets. They had been conspiring as to how to combine their ticket-earnings to redeem for a toy which would be pleasing to both when Sean […]
As a kid, I used to go fishing and swimming at a lake near our house during the summer. At night, the lights on the docks would flicker on automatically when it became dark. As if on cue, a swarm of bugs would appear and hover around the dock, attracted by the light. Love is […]
I have a Catholic prayer book that is over one hundred pages long. In this book there is every imaginable prayer. Prayers you would expect, like prayers for healing, but also some you would not, like prayers for safety during bad weather. Catholics never seem to be at a loss for ready-made prayers. It is not […]
One evening, I was leaving a meeting at my parish, and was pulling out of my parking space, when I stopped dead in my tracks. I had just realized that I walked out of the church and forgot to make a visit to Jesus. In every Catholic Church around the world, Jesus, in the form […]
“I’m scared, Daddy!” shouted my son above the din of man-made water rapids and squeals of about five hundred other kids. We were at a water park on a hot summer day, and we were making our way through the “Lazy River.” The problem for my son was that this part of the Lazy River […]
“This feels like a death,” I distinctly remember telling my mother on a very cold, and very lonely, November day, shortly after my divorce was filed. A divorce is a death—the death of a marriage. And with it comes all the same feelings of grief that are associated with a physical death. And like a […]
It is very easy to become disillusioned with our faith and with God when dealing with the crushing difficulty of divorce. It can be a lonely time, and God can feel very distant. We can become resigned to thinking that our lot in life is to endure some form of misery for the remainder of our […]
I will never forget the feeling of isolation I felt when I was going through my divorce. I turned to my parish and there were no programs for people who were separated or divorced. I tried to talk to my Pastor, and while he tried his best, he could offer me nothing more than the simple […]
“I can’t forgive him, he’s not sorry for what he did.” was the response from Stacy when she was asked how she felt about forgiving her former spouse. She went on to explain that she thought that, just as in order to receive forgiveness from God for our sins we must be truly sorry, the […]