My review of Leah Libresco's new book Arriving at Amen: "Leah has the distinct advantage of being someone who is exploring these things for the very first time. And Leah is not just any someone. She has a gift for describing her experiences with metaphors that are at once fresh, geeky, poetic and surprising." Read more
Most of the comments I receive on my blog posts are benign. I would say the vast majority enhance my thoughts about what I write whether they are kind, encouraging, thoughtful, critical or even hopelessly pedantic. What is not so run of the mill is to get startlingly nasty comments like the one I recently received from a reader with the inappropriately innocuous, cutesy name of “niknak.” niknak wrote: Some priests and nuns are special. You desperately want to be. It’s not the... Read more
When I entered the convent I had a pretty self-confident, completely unsophisticated idea of what holiness would look like. I expected to be able to identify the holiest sisters because they would have a retinue following them, hanging on their every word and helping them with daily tasks. Hey, that is what Padre Pio pretty much had right?! Read more
The Daughters of St. Paul are holding a discernment retreat led by Sr. Margaret Michael from July 16-20. I have been to retreats led my Sr. Margaret Michael. She is our exuberant, rapping sister from Staten Island who loves to cook and is full of the Holy Spirit. As I write this, I am starting to wish that I could go myself... Read more
I don’t know what is happening in Baltimore. But I do know that when I traveled as a child with my family to Arizona the wait staff at a restaurant tried to seat my black cousins at a table in the back of the restaurant, away from the rest of the family. In high school I went to a party. The host of the party told a series of jokes that involved lynching and a smattering of the n-word. Almost everyone there, even the punk rockers, laughed. When I was in college, I volunteered as a tutor in one of the Philadelphia-area public schools. There was only a handful of white students in the entire school. I ran copies of assignments on doled out paper because the books the students used were so old they could barely read them. Read more
Some amazing news about my book The Prodigal You Love as well as some videos that I did for Catholic TV that are embarrassing but I will share them with you in an effort to grow more humble. Read more
I’m entering seminary in a month. In March, you could already find me joking about how the two (young, joyful, Steubenville-birthed) weddings I was attending this summer were my “final test” before entering seminary. Strikingly beautiful Catholic millenials abound at such events, and though I spoke of the challenges of these looming festivals of Christ-like love with much jocularity, I was in fact hauntingly certain that my always-fragile self-understanding would be disturbed at some point. I am, shamelessly, but a... Read more
Leisure activities in today's society, whether it be surfing or just stopping and staring, are usually relegated to weekends and vacation time. We work and we get time off to play and never the twain shall meet. Here are ten reasons that should change... Read more
People have different levels of awareness of their faults and sinfulness, but almost all of us have “blind spots” when it comes to how we see ourselves. A strength or talent we take pride in may actually be an irritant or flaw to others. For some of us, pride blinds us to our flaws and we have trouble acknowledging our sinfulness, except in things that we don’t consider that important. For others among us, all we can see is our faults and sinfulness. And many of us swing back and forth between the two perspectives—we have days we feel we can conquer the world, and other days where to love that irritating person for the love of Christ feels way more heroic than we can manage. Read more
Wonder what life is like for men preparing to become priests? Check out this short vignette on life in the seminary and be inspired... Read more
Pursued by Truth
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