"Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope"- 1 Peter 3:15
Though there is so much darkness right now, the glimmer of hope for me has been seeing the impressive number of Catholics calling for action in response to the sex abuse scandals. One of the call-to-action efforts I have been particularly impressed by is the movement started by Bonnie Engstrom (A Knotted Life) and Kendra …
My heart hurts. I’m angry and disappointed and sad and a whole bunch of emotions all swirling together in the midst of this horrific scandal. But I also feel like I need to do something. I’m still trying to understand what I can do personally, but for now, I know that I can pray and …
Earlier this week, Mary Elizabeth Williams wrote a piece called “I don’t know how to be Catholic anymore” on Salon. In it, she describes her frustrations with her new parish priest and her beliefs that are different from what Christ teaches (as protected and promoted by the Catholic Church). She wrote a number of concerning …
Divorce is a difficult topic no matter what your faith background (or lack thereof) is, but I think there is the added complexity for Catholics because of our firm belief of the indissolubility of marriage. Our natural response tends to be to avoid the topic altogether, but as a Church, we face a legitimate crisis of divorced …
Did you know that the Catholic Church has assigned a different devotion to each month? In May, the devotion is to Our Lady. I decided to round up different resources about Our Blessed Mother to help you get to know her better and get advice on how to build a devotion to her. In this …
Building a Bridge by Father James Martin has received a lot of criticism. I myself have been leery of his writing, and actually criticized other pieces of his in the past, especially his LGBT parable article which is an excerpt from the revised edition of this book. However, I felt it wasn’t fair to criticize …
Several years ago, one of my friends gave me a copy of Chiara Corbella Petrillo: A Witness to Joy. I had been recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and I was struggling with this emotionally and spiritually. Though my challenges are nothing compared to what this holy woman went through, reading about how gracefully she …
On March 5th, Fr. James Martin shared six stories he referred to as parables. He quoted biblical scholar C. H. Dodd, saying “a parable was a story designed to ‘tease the mind into active thought.’” Fr. Martin went on to explain that he hoped these “parables” would “tease [our] mind[s] into active thought.” While I …
The summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college, one of my co-workers would frequently ask me questions about Catholicism. Though raised Catholic, he made the personal decision to convert to Islam. I’ll be honest: I dreaded those questions. This co-worker wasn’t a very friendly person to begin with, and his questions were often …
Shortly after a tragedy occurs, there is frequently condemnation of prayer. People complain that “thoughts and prayers” do nothing, or they even lash out at the faithful. To a certain extent, I understand the frustration: we are a nation that values action. We believe that actions speak louder than words. We implore people to “practice …