The readings at Mass during the Easter season are a constant reminder of our mission as disciples. Throughout the season, the first readings come from the book of Acts, detailing the events of the early days of the Church when the Apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit, were obeying the command of Christ to teach the nations. These first followers […]
Joannie Watson
About the Author
Joan Watson was born and raised in Lafayette, Indiana, but college and graduate school took her to Virginia, Ohio, and Rome. After graduating from Christendom College with a B.A. in History and Franciscan University with a M.A. in Theology, she moved to Nashville, Tennessee to be part of the explosion of Catholic culture in the middle of the Bible Belt.
She has been blessed to work for Dr. Scott Hahn at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology and the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia at Aquinas College. She is presently the Director of Adult Formation for the Diocese of Nashville. When she’s not testing the culinary exploits of new restaurants or catching up on the latest BBC miniseries, she’s FaceTiming with her eight nephews and nieces and enjoying her role as coolest aunt. She likes gelato, bourbon, and the color orange.
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The Message of a Mother
This Saturday is the 100th anniversary of the first appearance of Our Lady to Francisco, Jacinta, and Lucia at Fatima. She would appear six times to them that year, on the 13th of May, June, July, August (this apparition occurred on the 19th, due to the arrest of the children on the 13th), September, and October. On the occasion of these […]
A lesson of mercy, a story still being written
A few weeks ago, four of my friends and I had a mini-reunion. We have all gone our separate ways since college, and it usually takes a wedding to get us all back together. That was the case this time. As we were all traveling by car or plane to the wedding destination, one of my friends reminded us via […]
Don’t Stop Celebrating
In a culture that moves quickly to the next thing, it is hard to celebrate Easter for fifty days. We are probably better at living the forty days of Lent than we are about living the fifty days of Easter. As soon as Easter Sunday comes and goes, it almost feels like it’s back to Ordinary Time. Even though the […]
This Joyful Eastertide
Augustine once proclaimed, “We are an Easter people and ‘Alleluia’ is our song!” When the Easter Vigil’s beauty is over, when family visits have come to an end, and when the last egg is finally found in the yard, we must not forget that Easter is not merely a one-day celebration. It is a fifty-day celebration. And more than that, […]
My people, what have I done to you?
The Reproaches The Good Friday Reproaches, or Improperia, are among the most unsettling prayers of the Church’s liturgical tradition. They are fitting for the most unsettling day of the year: that day we dare to call “Good,” the day our churches stand stark and empty, the day when the comforting words of the Holy Mass are not uttered, the day […]
Shall I Crucify Your King?
As we approach Palm Sunday and Good Friday, we also approach one of the most difficult moments in liturgy: our call to crucify Christ. For the reading of the Passion accounts in these liturgies, there is the option for the Gospel to be read by multiple readers. I would venture to guess that most parishes read the Passion account this […]
Four Ways to Finish Lent Well
As we near the end of Lent, it’s a good time to stop and assess how we have done thus far. Before the revision of the Roman Missal in 1970, this coming Sunday, the Fifth Sunday of Lent, was referred to as “Passion Sunday” and marked the beginning of Passiontide. In his incredible fifteen-volume work on the liturgy, Dom Gueranger […]
Living the Joy of the Gospel
Pope Francis speaks frequently of the need to go out to the peripheries. While this can be interpreted many different ways, I recently I saw this lived out—not in the “peripheries” of the inner-city poor or on the faraway soil of a foreign country, but smack in the middle of Hollywood. Let’s face it. When it comes to places we […]
The Sacrifice of a Smile
I have been reading a lot of St. Josemaría Escrivá lately, as well as a daily meditation based on the spirituality of Escrivá, and I am often struck how often smiling is mentioned. St. Josemaría’s spirituality is based on the notion that we can all become saints in our ordinary lives, with our ordinary jobs and responsibilities, amidst the ordinary […]