The Search is Over
I was in my car when the 1985 song, “The Search is Over,” by Surrender came on the radio. I had not heard it in years, and for a moment...
Quo Vadis?: On the Humanity of St. Peter
The humanity of St. Peter has always captivated me—from his declaration at the Transfiguration that building tents is the best idea, to his fearless (albeit short-lived) walk across the sea,...
Scavenger Hunt for God
I see Him in the most unlikely of places now. He appears in my peripheral vision as I pray, when a bird appears suddenly on my windowsill. My heart stirs...
Entrusting Our Children to God as They Grow
In her deep anguish, Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly. And she made a vow, saying: Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember...
What’s So Hard About Making, Being, and Keeping Friends as Adults?
I think I watched too many episodes of Friends and Golden Girls in my formative years. I grew up with this idea that when I was an adult, I’d have...
Unexpected Challenges of the Promised Land
Our daughter often falls asleep on the drive home from Mass. Sadly, she is not the kind of toddler who can be transferred from car to bed once she has...
Where Is Your Village?
I was on the phone with a friend, talking about living with anxiety and getting ready to go back to school. She admitted, “I’m scared I can’t do it. I...
In His Heart: The 2020 Prayer Pledge // Day 31
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...
In His Heart: The 2020 Prayer Pledge // Day 30
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.â€
You know what she means...
In His Heart: The 2020 Prayer Pledge // Day 29
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.â€
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...
Grace in the Wanting: Searching for a Unique + Intimate Relationship with Jesus
Before I met my husband, I was so annoyed by people with boyfriends. They spent all their time together, talking nonstop, always considering what the other person wanted or thought....
In His Heart: The 2020 Prayer Pledge // Day 28
“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...
