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The Easter Gospel stories from both Matthew and John lead with Mary Magdalene. This is as important as it is surprising. Certainly her account of encounter of the empty tomb...

A few years ago, I heard a newscaster reporting on a scene from the Vatican, in which Pope Francis presided over the Liturgy during Ordinary Time. The newscaster, offering commentary...

I am not feeling particularly good at this "fostering faith" thing right now. I thought I was. But, in our house, we have run into a few recent and significant...

Last fall, there was a terrible commotion down the street from me—firetrucks and police cars were everywhere, blocking the road. Only later did we come to find out that one...

Honoring the Sacred Heart in the world is a practice of both/and. We have interior work to do, which naturally permeates to the external, and back again. Already this week we have examined the ways that we might conform our hearts to the Sacred Heart through imitation and prayer, animated and nurtured by God’s deep love for us. The other half of this devotion is active...

Recently, I was listening to a homily by Fr. Mike Schmitz in which he recounts a comment he heard by a choir member one morning at Mass. She leaned over and, looking out at the gathered community, whispered to her neighbor: “I see dead people.†You know what she means...

There are two striking touch points that Pope St. John Paul II includes in this excerpt which I find comforting: encounter and the heart. Pope Francis has been describing a "culture of encounter" since the beginning of his papacy in 2013—the idea that we are changed by engaging our Faith in the world and the people in it. He says, “Whenever we encounter another person in love, we discover something new about God.†We know this to be true in our own experience, whether we can relate to these discoveries in terms of our best friends, or those whose opinions and perspectives challenge us most deeply. If we’re lucky, these attributes can be true of the same people...

“The world will be saved by beauty,†we hear. These words consoled Dorothy Day, which tell us a great deal about the needs of the human spirit. In her houses of hospitality in New York City during the Great Depression and beyond, she witnessed the ugliness of poverty and addiction on a daily basis. She knew what it meant to long for and to be filled by beauty...

There is a park I love and hate to take my kids to when it gets really hot. It is half awesome slides, half splash pad. As you can imagine, this is wildly popular among the families in our community, so it is always packed. I love it because my kids have a blast. I hate it because it is mentally exhausting to watch little ones up, down, and around all of the play equipment. Because, ultimately, I am afraid of them being separated and the accompanying feeling of fear that quickly follows until I can find them again...

Two things washed over me as I listened to the lyrics of Matt Maher’s song, Garden...

Upon becoming a new dad, a friend of mine described the experience of bringing a new baby into a room as inviting all occupants to a "baby campfire." I instantly knew what he meant. Instinctively, we know to gather, to see with new eyes, and allow ourselves to become transfixed on the thing of beauty before us...

I have been thinking a lot about the dark as the northern hemisphere creeps toward the longest night of the year. As an early riser, I notice these changes as...