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Holy week triptych, Ethiopia, 16th century.

This is insightful. As a Catholic — a cradle Catholic, but an intellectual one — I spent a long time jumping, like Qoheleth, from one pursuit to another in order to find meaning, to “prove” myself, as it were. That included a lot of intellectual pursuits and attempts to master Catholic theology.

Like many who attended Steubenville — defi…

My Jesus, mercy!

I love this time of year!

damn

Thoughts on God’s mercy and the Prodigal Son:

“The extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural cure for suffering, but a supernatural use for it.'“

—Simone Weil

Blessed Holy Week to all—

"A saint is not someone who never sins, but one who sins less and less frequently and gets up more and more quickly."

—St. Bernard

not all of us can pull this off. but all of us can try.

Fr. Reed was one of my instructors in seminary and a friend with whom I’ve occasionally had the pleasure of conversing in the two decades since. While recognizing that it is easy to be surprised these days by the private lives of others, I don’t think Fr. Reed the type to have done anything wrong as indicated and I pray for him and all i…

The Cross is the way of Paradise, but only when it’s borne willingly.

—St. Paul of the Cross

“Let us look at life as it truly is: an instant between two eternities.”

- St. Thérèse of Lisieux

“I have killed a holy man.”

Latest from my series on the Sorrowful Mysteries & The Saints.

Angel in the Waters (amzn.to/3RUhG0c) is a modern* classic, and the best for talking about a new sibling growing. Parents are gonna cry though.

*anything post-dating my childhood is modern.

The author of The Heliand (the Saxon Gospel) imagines the resurrection.

Tomorrow, instead of the usual interview, I’ll be sharing a meditation on the suffering and death of Our Lord—featuring the profound insights of St. Thomas Aquinas. It’s Holy Week, and I hope this helps you draw closer to Christ.

Ten years ago, deep in Obama’s second term and still flailing to get a prayer practice, I took a friend’s advice and set aside all the hard core meditation structure and just started sitting quietly.

And I set an alarm for two minutes.

I sat for two minutes for several days while I got used to nothing happening.

Then I started adding mi…

Praise report!

Super busy week! Drove out to Dallas to pick up my son’s friends so they could all go on a seminary visit from our diocese.

We’re so close paying off the big family van, but we started thinking about tariffs driving up the cost of cars and having two vehicles over 100,000 miles probably isn’t smart with all these kids. So I spent all day Friday negotiating to afford a small SUV (with the money we’ll save shortly once the van note is paid) so we at least have something we can use fo…

Decided to take Holy Week off from most serious writing. I'll scribble notes in my journal, but most of the time I'm going to read good books and think and pray and ask for God's guidance.

:)

I feel like this image perfectly encapsulates left wing environmentalism

My AI skepticism is muy grande, but I just tried activating it on my phone because you can just call out Bible verses and it will give you multiple translations.

Next up: “Hey Siri, show me where sola scriptura is in the Bible. Siri? Hello?”

Published remarks from my time

“I do not think enough of us appreciate just how frightening porn itself is to young women, or how frightening to women the men are who have been malformed by it. Or frankly, how frightening is the rhetoric of those extremely online right-wing male provocateurs who too often talk a…

Little ways to resist how tech overtakes human interaction:

-eat in a restaurant or greet your delivery driver instead of having food dropped at door

-take groceries to a cashier instead of self checkout

-skip the self-service kiosks (fast food, ATM) and choose the human being