There are many things vying for young people’s attention these days. Attention confers authority. Those who receive the most attention tend to wield the greatest influence over our lives, leading to the greatest authority of all: the authority to shape our desires. Whoever can shape young people’s desires most profoundly takes hold of not just the present but also the future.
Fostering Vocational Discernment, Part 1 (Letters to Parents Series VI)
Parents’ vocation is to help your children become capable of their vocations. Each vocation is the specific shape of one’s own discipleship, and discipleship itself is a matter of love. Discerning a vocation means learning how to perceive and respond to the Lord’s will within and through the concrete circumstances of your own life, for the good of others and thus for your own ultimate good.
Culture of the Home, Part 3: Customs (Letters to Parents Series IV)
It is customary to assume that children rebel against their parents. What is often discounted, though, is just how strong the influence of parents is. If children do rebel, it is rebellion against the standard the parents have established. Rebellion itself shows the outsized influence of parents.
It turns out, however, that the myth of rebellion is overblown.
Culture of the Home, Part 2: Time (Letters to Parents Series III)
What I'm Working On at the Turn of the Year
Interview in Crux regarding new book on St. Joseph: "Model of Faith"
I really enjoyed this interview with the inimitable Charlie Camosy on one of my new books, Model of Faith: Reflecting on the Litany of Saint Joseph. Check out the interview here.
This coincides with a three-night parish mission I am currently leading for Saint Joseph parish in Mishawaka, Indiana. Lots of good St. Joseph stuff going on in my life right now!
If you are interested in ordering Model of Faith, check it out here. If you have already read Model of Faith, would you mind writing a short review of the book on Amazon? Those are really important for helping the book’s visibility.
And if you or your parish/school/diocese purchase 20 or more copies of Model of Faith, I will happily offer a free one-hour Zoom seminar for your group. Just let me know!
"Do you know what I have done to you?" The Transformative Gift of Jesus in Washing the Disciples' Feet
St. Joseph, Hope of the Sick
What I'm Working On to Close Out 2020
Mary Magdalene, Doubting Thomas, and What It Means to "See the Lord"
Advent with Oscar Romero
Biographies of saints that get it right, Part 4 of 4
You cannot tell the story of a saint without telling the story of God’s love for his people. The saint is where the love of Christ is made manifest in a particular way, in a particular time, for particular communities and people. Saints never stand alone: Christ is with them, and they bring Christ to others.
In this fourth and final installment of this series on biographies of the saints, we examine two works: “Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints” (Orbis Books, $24) by Scott Wright with Octavio Duran, and “Bakhita: From Slave to Saint” (Ignatius Press, $16.95) by Roberto Italo Zanini — both testify to the presence of communion in the life of every saint.
Biographies of saints that get it right, Part 3 of 4
The lives of the saints are never mere biographies, because their real lives are hidden in Christ with God (cf. Col 3:3). To see these men and women as a saint means learning to see Christ’s beauty in their particular life. Perhaps no one is better suited to see a saint for who he or she really is than other saints. Some of these men and women even write about other their fellow members of the Church triumphant as a testament to Christ’s glory made present to and effective in the lives of those who have learned to love them.
In this third installment in a series on biographies of the saints, we examine two works about saints — one written by a saint himself (St. Bonaventure on St. Francis), and another written by one whose cause for canonization has begun (Dorothy Day on St. Thérèse of Lisieux).
Biographies of saints that get it right, Part 2 of 4
It is difficult to write about the saints. Their biographers face the twin dangers of reducing their subjects to a mere biography or of sapping their subjects in pious drivel. When biographers get it right, though, the saints come alive to inspire and challenge those who meet them in and through these biographies.
In this second installment in a series on saint biographies, we look to two modern works about two medieval reformers: “Catherine of Siena” by Sigrid Undset and “St. Philip Neri: I Prefer Heaven” by Giacomo Campiotti (director) and Mario Ruggeri (screenwriter).
Biographies of saints that get it right, Part 1 of 4
Writing about saints is a strangely perilous affair. It is much easier to get a saint wrong than to get a saint right. On the one side, there is the danger of reducing a saint to mere biography drained of theological and spiritual depth, while on the other there is the danger of undisciplined pious paraphrasing. But when the biography of a saint goes right, the personality and distinctive holiness of the saint is made vividly, refreshingly present in the minds and hearts of readers.
As the first installment in a series on such biographies, these two books present beloved saints with clarity, depth and spiritual richness: “A Man for Others: Maximilian Kolbe” by Patricia Treece and “Something Beautiful for God” by Malcolm Muggeridge.
Saints for Married Couples
Matrimony is a sacrament in the service of communion. As explained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, matrimony (along with holy orders) is ” directed towards the salvation of others; if they contribute as well to personal salvation, it is through service to others that they do so” (No. 1534). The Sacrament of Matrimony builds up the People of God, and it is in service of that mission that the sacrament contributes to the salvation of the married persons themselves.
The Church has become even more observant of and reverent toward the extraordinary witness of married persons for their holiness in recent decades. When Pope Francis canonized Louis and Zélie Martin together in 2015, the Church heralded the gift of these two disciples as worthy of universal veneration precisely as spouses to one another. Not only were they and their family held up for reverence, but so was their marital bond.
In the holiness of married persons, we can find the beauty of Christ — the beauty that saves the world. This is the beauty of lives given over in the service of communion: through enduring suffering, bestowing life and enacting charity. When we revere and follow the witness of married saints, they show us not just the beauty and meaning of marriage, but indeed the beauty and meaning to which marriage is ordered: the gift of communion in Christ.
We will look to four married couples to perceive something of their holiness and appreciate how they fulfilled their vocations in the service of communion. The first couple is the one mentioned above — Louis and Zélie — who were canonized together. The other three are couples where one spouse has been publicly revered for their holiness (St. Gianna Beretta Molla, Blessed Franz Jägerstätter and Servant of God Elisabeth Leseur) and who thereby shines light on their respective spouses and the union shared between them. For each couple, we will review Scripture verses — ones commonly used in wedding liturgies — to which these particular spouses distinctly bear witness.
Catholic School Administrators and Faculty: A Resource
(Check out this resource for Catholic school administrators and faculty)
By clearly articulating “what matters most,” we can more clearly see where we are, where we hope to be, and how we get from one to the other. As Catholic high school administrators and faculty, reading this book together will help you to find space and inspiration to talk about the most important things about your school and your students.
Love Is Always Conditional
We want to say that love is unconditional. It seems right. It is equal parts comforting and challenging. It is comforting because if I am loved, then there is nothing I can do to lose that. It is challenging because in order to love, I have to will to be untroubled by obstacles. We do not want to say love is conditional because we fear submitting love to the twisted logic of relationship terrorism: if you do not meet my demands, I deprive you of what is good for you, or vice versa. We think of conditions as qualifications and we do not want to attach qualifications to love. So we say love is unconditional. But that is wrong. Love is always conditional.
Saints Should Disturb Us
I read something about St. Catherine of Siena last night that has completely torn apart my existence and forced a sharp examine of conscience. Why? Because the saints--when we really, really dare to see them--are not there first of all to comfort us. They should first disturb us. They work in Christ, who wounds us in order to heal us.