
Catholic Husband
244 FOLLOWERS
Hi! My name is Chet. This is a personal blog focused on sharing my experiences and lessons learned in the married life. I've been writing here since 2013 with Alison, my wife, serving as my editor since the very beginning. Catholic Husband covers range of topics including fatherhood, Catholic life, and careers. All of these posts have been written with the intention of helping you to love,..
Catholic Husband
2d ago
I spent a lot of time thinking about the future. My brain is wired for efficiency, so no matter the task or topic, it’s constantly trying to optimize. It saves me some degree of time, to be sure, but I’m guilty of putting together plans for my plans.
Having a plan, for a project or just life, is a great thing. It allows you to make many decisions at the outset, and align your choices towards that end. Decision-making is streamlined because any option that doesn’t result in getting closer to the destination is instantly ruled out. You can move fast, and dedicate your mental load to other tasks ..read more
Catholic Husband
2d ago
We’re back from our annual family ski vacation, and had another successful year. Though more skiing is in our future, a unique aspect of our experience this week was that almost all of us had a ski lesson. In pairs of two, we set off for a few hours with an instructor to work on our skill.
I am still new to the sport, but what struck me was how everyone, no matter how long they’d been cutting across mountains, walked away from their lesson with something new. For me, as I begin to transition to more advanced techniques, our objective was blending.
There are three main skills to parallel skiing ..read more
Catholic Husband
2d ago
I remember exactly how I felt. It was the fall of 2018 and two years into our new life out west, I was at my (then) highest weight ever. Alison and I decided to make a change, and as the calendar flipped to 2019, we eased into an entirely new lifestyle.
It wasn’t just that we wanted better guidelines for what to eat and how to fuel ourselves, as two exhausted young parents of three little kids, it was that we needed to take control. My headaches were derailing our life, and it was time to make the change.
Together, we slowly eased into it, with a one-week transition. It wasn’t perfect, there w ..read more
Catholic Husband
2d ago
When I think about my ideal day, every minute is scheduled out. I have books I want to read, news articles to follow, workouts to complete, prayers to pray, meditations to reflect upon, chores to check off, tasks to do, and maybe somewhere in there some rest? This type of zero-based time planning is extremely brittle, especially given how much life can throw at us.
The idea, though, is not a bad one. I’ve written many times over the years about schedules and time management, but if I were to be successful in executing on this perfect schedule for even a week, I can be sure of two things.
First ..read more
Catholic Husband
2d ago
We’re two weeks into the new year, and the grand designs that many of us made are at risk of faltering. One of the best ways that we can spend our time each day is in prayer. This tremendously important activity not only contributes to bringing God’s kingdom to earth, but it fortifies us for the struggles that we encounter in the ordinary life of our vocation.
There is no rule or formula that dictates how much we need to pray or ought to pray. It’s particular to our lives. Cloistered religious pray a vast majority of the day, but a parent has other holy obligations to attend to in the course o ..read more
Catholic Husband
2d ago
It’s been 25 years since the Catholic Church last celebrated the Jubilee. I was in middle school in 2000, but I still remember the special events that occurred. Throughout the year, there will be many special opportunities to enrich our faith and draw from the treasury of graces.
In the Bible, the Jubilee was more than just a special year, spiritually. Debts would be forgiven, property rights restored, and slaves freed. It’s not difficult to imagine the joy that came with such liberation.
In the Catholic tradition, we’ve celebrated Jubilee’s for over 700 years, and these special years are mean ..read more
Catholic Husband
2d ago
In the entirely of salvation history, there are stories, major and minor, that all play their part. Every episode that made its way into the Bible contains enough truth and wisdom to fill a book of its own. This is especially true of the story of the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt.
Although it takes up less than a quarter of one page of even a large print Bible, the story contains rich theological value. In it, we glean insights into the silent character of St. Joseph.
In his familial hometown, but away from his adult home, Joseph dutifully brings his young family to obey the order of Caesar ..read more
Catholic Husband
2d ago
Born on Christmas Day is the King of Kings.
He arrived in a damp, cold, dark place, in some cave in the backwater of a once-great kingdom, to a people oppressed by their rulers, foreign and domestic. He chose to reset the global order not in a time of fast communication and stable democracies, but in a time of mass illiteracy, brutal tribalism, and gruesome cruelty.
In the midst of this chaos arrived the great I Am. The spark He struck has turned into the roaring flame that spread through the whole world. None of it was possible without a God whose love for His people could not be contained, o ..read more
Catholic Husband
2d ago
The new year is just around the corner. In just over two weeks, 2024 will be in the books and a fresh new 2025 will be staring us down. Perhaps instead of tinkering around the edges with tired New Year’s resolutions, we should rethink everything.
Children are notorious for leaping to the next developmental stage without telling their parents. I find myself with children who are big enough to take on additional responsibilities in our home, but I’m still doing all the same work I’ve done since they were infants.
Every so often, we need to take a step back, and question everything that we do. Wh ..read more
Catholic Husband
2d ago
Last weekend, I drove solo with my two oldest children across the country. There was plenty of screen time, but perhaps more surprisingly, there was a healthy dose of just time in the car. I played my soft music, and the two of them sat in the back seat. They read, they talked, and they played.
My children have constantly shifting friendships, but thankfully little conflict. Stuck in the car for two days, their imaginations sparked, and they found endless ways to pass the time. It is so gratifying as a parent to experience this; in the down moments, they fill the void with creative play.
As an ..read more