Spirituality

"There is a God-shaped hole in every man that only Christ can fill." — St. Augustine

A Parish that Does Not Revere Children is Suicidal

A recent negative experience at Mass left me thinking: are we shooting ourselves in the foot when it comes to young families?

Mission Spirituality

How to Fire Up Your Faith When it is Weak

Are the embers of your faith burning low? Here are 6 questions to fan the flame.

Mission Spirituality

Why I Believe that God has a Plan for You

Who was the real me? What was the real narrative of my life?

Spirituality

Why You Need to Be at the New Evangelization Summit

Here are my top reasons why you don't want to miss NES!

Mission Spirituality

The Most Mind-blowing Truth about Prayer

Prayer is not rocket science. It is not the practice of the brilliant, but the normal.

Spirituality

Why You Should Sing Praise to God More Often

It is truly fitting for the Christian to sing to his maker.

Mission Spirituality

Everyone Has a Right to Know their Mother

Our Protestant brothers and sisters have sincere questions about what we believe about Mary.

Spirituality

God's Mercy is Just Waiting On You, Baby

Mercy constitutes the Church’s very existence. Woah… imagine if that’s what we were known for!

Spirituality

How to Walk Tall as a Christian with Depression

How can we interpret things like depression in light of our Christian walk? Here are my personal thoughts.

Culture Spirituality

My Wicked Awesome Theme for the New Year

Living without structure makes you a prisoner to your inclinations and habits. Not this year!

Spirituality

Nativity image with Joseph, Mary and Jesus

Why You Should Make Friends with My Hero, Joseph

Reflecting on Joseph helps me remember to do what is right more immediately, choosing higher goods with the grace God.

Spirituality

How to See Your Fears as Real Opportunities

Fear can be a terrible destroyer. It seems to attack the very foundation of our lives. But it can actually do the opposite.

Spirituality

We Desperately Need a New Vision of the Laity

At first she laughed. Then she got a bit emotional.
“We so badly need to think differently about ourselves as lay people."

Mission Spirituality

How to Kick Your Bad Habits to the Curb Right Now

Why do I say that all Catholics should read The Power of Habit? Because all Catholics are called to be saints!

Culture Spirituality

I Really Hate Depression, But it Has an Upside

Crazy as it sounds to associate benefits with depression, here are 6 that I’ve come to embrace.

Spirituality

What You Ask in a Crisis Really Matters

These two questions have radically changed the way I approach crises because they let me interpret and respond to crises differently.

Spirituality

How to Make Jesus the Heart of Your Vacation

Instead of turning into a human-sloth hybrid, this year I am really trying to use my leisure time to grow closer to Jesus.

Culture Spirituality

Do You Have the Guts to Change What Needs Changing?

Here is how some terrible news turned into a real blessing.

Morality Spirituality

How to use social media like a saint

Saints do not drift when they are online, they swim. What I mean is they are intentional about why they do something.

Culture Mission Spirituality

How to Turn Up the Temperature on Your Prayer Life

Here are some concrete resolutions to spend more time in conversation with God!

Mission Spirituality

Why Newlyweds Better Check Their Expectations at the Aisle

Everything changed when I chose to let go of my expectations.

Culture Relationships Spirituality

8 Catholic Apps You Should Download in a Hurry

Some apps can help you get where you are going, and when where you are going is heaven, we are REALLY on board. Here are some of our faves.

Spirituality

Something I Want to Say to the Occasional Church-Goer

I hope that you discover what I did...

Culture Mission Spirituality

man contemplating clouds make God priority #1

Why Every Man Should Make God His #1 Priority

Having lived as though he didn't exist, I know the benefits of making God #1.

Spirituality

How to Make Easter an Evangelizing Event

“Easter is coming, which is a very joyful time for us. We’d like to invite you to be a part of it if you like. Here is an invitation.”

Mission Spirituality

How to Rock this Lent Like Never Before

How can we live more intensely this "favourable time for conversion"?

Spirituality

How to Share Jesus with the Online World

Let's talk about opening up the world of our Catholic faith in a way that beacons others to come and take a look.

Culture Spirituality

Why You Should Be a New Media Missionary

We all need to bring the Christian message to the online world, even if it means learning some new things, and here is why.

Culture Mission Spirituality

How I Transferred From Frustration to Prayer on the Subway

The subway is a very easy place to become bitter, angry, and overly selfish. After a lot of frustration, I decided to start praying about it.

Culture Spirituality

What Happens When the Deaf Can Hear?

"You have a sense of what they felt to finally have access to the world everyone else was experiencing." This brings something else to mind.

Relationships Spirituality

The Best Possible Way to Spend New Year's

Let me tell you a bit about 6 of my best ever New Year's experiences.

Culture Current Events Spirituality

Catholic Travel Tips from a Seasoned Backpacker

See the world: I’m a Christian backpacker, and you can be one too!

Culture Spirituality

Does Your Parish Have a Shallow End?

Like Pope Francis says, it all starts with encounter.

Culture Mission Spirituality

You Need to Embrace the Crisis that Wrecks You

It is good for us to get in touch with what wrecks us.

Mission Spirituality

Can You Help Me?

"The one who helps the sick and needy touches the flesh of Christ, alive and present in our midst."

Culture Spirituality

An Ecological Conversion? Say what?

God placed Adam in the garden and asked him to till it, not to ravage and abuse it.

Culture Current Events Morality Spirituality

Leading Discovery

I think it is easier to make faith complicated than easy.

Spirituality

Relationship is More than Knowledge

Let's talk about the difference between knowing about someone and knowing him.

Culture Relationships Spirituality

Goretti-style Forgiveness is Something You Need to Know

One of the scariest prayers, if you really think about it, is asking God the Father to forgive us AS we forgive others.

Spirituality

Daring to Make Time for What Really Matters

"Some resist giving themselves over completely to mission and thus end up in a state of paralysis and acedia.”

Culture Mission Spirituality

How I Overcame My Fear of the Confessional

"I was so nervous. More nervous than starting my first day of graduate studies."

Relationships Spirituality

Has Evangelii Gaudium Made a Difference at All?

What am I doing now that I wasn’t doing before EG? What in particular has been “transformed”?

Culture Mission Spirituality

It Doesn't Hurt to Ask – The Power of a Prayer Request

“What can I pray for?” reveals much more than asking “How are you?”

Spirituality

Nicky Gumbel interviews Fr. Cantalamessa

Suddenly Something Remarkable is Happening in Ecumenism

Be honest: do you believe that Christian unity is possible?

Mission Spirituality

What Do You Give Someone who has Everything?

We need to allow ourselves to be emptied and to ache and long for that is where we will find God.

Culture Spirituality

Evangelization: It’s work, but it’s not rocket science!

Evangelization can be simple, effective, and free. Here's how.

Spirituality

5 Ways a Regular Joe can Evangelize

Can anyone evangelize? Even a Regular Joe like me?

Culture Spirituality

5 Things I Love About Working with Protestants

"What unites us is much greater than what divides us." -St. John XXIII

Culture Mission Spirituality

3 Ways to Live in a Ministry of Presence

To truly live in a ministry of presence is a gift.

Spirituality

One Practical Thing You Can Do to Make Your Parish a Warmer Place

"I may even go as far as seeing if they want to go for a coffee. It may seem weird, but it shouldn’t."

Culture Spirituality

The Unexamined Day is Not Worth Living

When it comes time to talk about New Year’s resolutions, do you have mixed feelings?

Spirituality

Can I Get a Witness?

Walkin' it often comes before talkin' it.

Spirituality

Comparison Killed the Cat

They say ‘curiosity killed the cat,’ but in my experience, comparison has always killed this cat.

Culture Spirituality

Prepare your house: Advent is upon us

"This is a time to prepare our hearts for Jesus, especially if they are darker than we want them to be. We need to search for the light and clean the house."

Spirituality

Be the Kind of Person You Want to Date

"Virtue attracts virtue. If you want to find Mrs. Right, be Mr. Right."

Relationships Spirituality

Letting the Floodgates Open: A Personal Testimony

"I craved the floodgates. This is the adult conversion. I needed to choose, no matter how many encounters; I still needed the choice."

Spirituality

I Want My Parish to Be Radical and Fearless

Does your parish set your heart on fire with a desire to "go and announce the Gospel of the Lord,” literally?

Culture Mission Spirituality

Avoid My Common #Prayerfail

A plan without contingency plans is a bad plan, eh?

Spirituality

Lips, Sleeves, and Missed Opportunities

Strongest among the things that haunt me are missed opportunities to speak of the faith.

Culture Spirituality

Loving and Serving the Poor

On this Labour Day I recall a recent labour of love.

Culture Spirituality

Burn Your Ships

When your commit your life to Christ, don't look back!

Morality Spirituality

5 Reasons Every Disciple Needs a Blog

Have you ever thought about blogging your faith?

Culture Spirituality

Press Play on the New Evangelization

"I think the New Evangelization is about Catholics ceasing to be sealed envelopes."

Spirituality

The Painful Truth about the New Evangelization

Here are two ways you can and should get hurt in the New Evangelization.

Culture Mission Spirituality

Album Review: Brothers, by Joe Zambon

It's great to review an album that I actually love.

Culture Spirituality

The Colossal Battle Within, and Why I Refuse to Surrender

Every morning I face an intense battle, and I never know for sure who will come out on top.

Spirituality

Share the Message of Easter

Are you keeping Holy Week to yourself, or are you sharing it with someone?

Spirituality

Follow the Leader

"Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses..."

Current Events Spirituality

A Doubly Blessed Day

Here's a couple of reasons why today is an amazing day.

Current Events Spirituality

Are You Getting "Extreme" Enough this Lent?

Is heaven your ultimate aim? If your answer is yes, then you're gonna have to get a little extreme.

Spirituality

Alpha is for Catholics?

Do you know about the Alpha experience? You should.

Culture Spirituality

What are You Waiting for?

Have we left the New Evangelization on pause?

Current Events Spirituality

St. Valentine's Day Links Roundup

So yeah, we're running with the dating theme lately...

Relationships Spirituality

In Your Faith Life, Go for the Gold

Let's talk about the difference 5% makes.

Culture Current Events Spirituality

How Being Tested by Depression Brought Growth

Here's something not everyone knows about me: a few times in my life, I've had to deal with depression.

Culture Spirituality

The Fruits of Solidarity

"One of the most amazing parts of every trip is the deep friendships that are created through out the two weeks we spend together, and seeing how we are each evangilized by one another."

Culture Spirituality