Dear Sister, I’ve been reading your answers to questions on Integrated Catholic Life™ and have been playing with the idea of writing you a question that I’ve been thinking about for many years. It’s about my family. I don’t consider us bad Catholics, nor do I consider us to be devout “pillars of the parish”. We are just a regular […]
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Science, Beauty, Teenagers and the God Question
Young Atheists One of the most difficult issues, with which I have to personally deal as a teacher, is the student who enters my Grade 9 Religion class at the age of fourteen already an avowed atheist. While I have come to expect this from some entering Grade 12 Philosophy, such an attitude in one so young is disconcerting. Usually these students […]
I Will Proclaim Your Praise
“Lord, open my lips and my mouth will proclaim your praise.” (Psalm 51:15) These words ring out in the chapel, breaking the silence of the early morning. It is still dark outside and our community of sisters, albeit still a bit bleary-eyed, has gathered to begin the day singing the Divine Office. The words of the psalms fill the air: “It […]
A Mother’s Serenity Prayer
When the heat goes out and the temperature is minus-two degrees outside and I wonder when the oil company will arrive to save us from this dangerous situation, —Lord, help me to accept hardship as a pathway to peace, to take as Jesus did the sinful world as it is, not as I would have it. When we are on day […]
The Winning Strategy
Editor’s Note: Dr. Kreeft’s classic essay on successfully winning the culture wars is timeless. For more information, see his book, How to Win the Culture War. To win any war, the three most necessary things to know are: (1) that you are at war, (2) who your enemy is, and (3) what weapons or strategies can defeat him. You cannot […]
Living Simply This Lent
I once was visiting a beautiful home, finely furnished with exquisite furniture, lovely artwork and impeccable décor. However, the heavy draperies around the windows blocked most of the natural light in the rooms, and left an atmosphere of heaviness and, quite frankly, suffocation. Although the home was beautiful I couldn’t wait to leave and enjoy the freshness and plainness of […]
Forty Ideas for Your Lent
Lent is supposed to be a season of a successful journey through the desert of penance to a new land and a new, deeper, intimacy with God. But often, we find ourselves going back to the same old Lenten pathways of past years and end up getting nowhere. My aim here is to put into your hands some new Lenten […]
The Gift I Want to Give Back
I’m a dry-eyed gal most of the time, and I have always prided myself on that trait. Then I started going to Mass. I certainly didn’t mean to turn into a blubbering mess. At the time, I was a tough know-it-all college graduate, and I was only there because this good-looking Prince Charming of mine insisted that he had to […]
The Gift of Labor
Work is a gift. Perhaps it doesn’t seem that way when we’re growing tired of the monotony of our commute, when the stress of deadlines is threatening our peace, or when we struggle with our coworkers or our boss. But our work is one way we partner with God in our sanctification and the sanctification of the world around us. […]
How to Respond When You Meet Suffering
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In 2005 while undergoing chemotherapy, I was sitting in an uncomfortable recliner on the sixth floor of the medical facility. An IV dripped poison into my veins that would simultaneously cure me of the cancer in my body, and wreak havoc on it, sending waves of nausea, chills, malaise. The concoction did not discriminate between healthy and cancer cells. It […]