My maternal grandfather was a carpenter. Mostly he built houses, but he could pretty much make anything out of wood. One day, when I was in my early 20s, he took me down to his workshop because he had a piece of furniture he wanted to give me. It was a beautiful antique vanity that he had picked up from an auction. I instantly loved it and he said to me with a smile, “I thought you might like it.” Although he didn’t make it, it still meant a lot to me coming from him. Looking at it always made me think of his workshop which smelled like sawdust and lacquer; two smells I associate with him. He ..read more

As I was coming into the Catholic Church, one of the hardest things for me to fully wrap my mind around was the issue of Mary. For nearly thirty years, I hardly spoke or thought about her. She was mentioned at Christmas time but that was about it. I didn’t contemplate that she might love me, I didn’t reflect on the magnitude of her participation in our salvation, and I sure didn’t pray to her. Mary was nothing but a background figure to me. But, when you enter the Catholic Church, you can’t help but be inundated by her. At first, when I converted, I thought to myself, “I’ll just set all this ..read more

Well, here we are in the 500th week of enduring the Coronavirus outbreak. You know, when this all first started, it seemed sort of unreal like we were being punked. “Pshhhh,” I thought to myself, “this all will be over here pretty quickly.” That’s what wishful thinking can do for you. As it became apparent that things were getting more and more serious, I optimistically thought we would all band together as the country did during WW2. Our hearts would swell with compassion, our love of country would bind us to our fellow man, and our resolve would stoically shine through. (Insert proudly puff ..read more

Back when I was a counselor for victims of domestic and sexual violence, part of my job entailed going to court with victims. One woman I encountered had been using our services for years even before I got there. To save her privacy, I can’t go into details but it involved a bad rape case with lots of evidence. At every corner, she had been let down by our justice system and her life had turned upside down. She clung to a microscopic piece of thread that the State Attorney’s Office would show up and put her abusers behind bars. If you are unfamiliar with how the State Attorney’s Office works ..read more

In my house, the only rule is that there are no rules. You see, my husband and I don’t want to stifle the expressive freedom of our children. We don’t want them to feel bound or tied up by anything their dad and I see as important, because what if our kids have a different view of how things should be done? In our home, everyone is allowed to live how they choose and it gets a bit hairy at times, but we don’t want to oppress. It’s live and let live in our domain! Just kidding. I know you weren’t buying a word of what I wrote. You weren’t buying it because you know that no sane and reasonable ..read more

(This blog contains a very sensitive, controversial topic. I will not tolerate any name-calling, blatantly rude, or hateful comments from anybody. I will delete anything I deem out-of-line. You can disagree with me, but be a mature adult about it.) When I was seventeen, I started dating a guy named Gary. Not long into our relationship, I challenged him to a race down at the high school track. I was feeling cocky, as I was a trained sprinter, an athlete, and a pretty healthy person. Gary, on the other hand, was a big strong guy, but he was not an athlete, he smoked, drank, and had a horrible d ..read more

(I know I’m late to the game with this blog, but I had to wait until my anger subsided to write on it. While the rest of the world has moved on from this issue, I feel I have a unique perspective on it given my background. So, now that the dust has settled and the Holy Spirit has reigned me in, let’s talk about…The Superbowl halftime show.) I’m gonna throw it out there and say I wasn’t a fan of the halftime show. “PRUDE!” It really bothers me that I can’t watch it with my family or even at all. “Oh my word, so scandalized. Tell you what, next year we’ll have an Amish choir come in and sing so ..read more

As most of you know, when my husband and I got married, I was Protestant and he was a cradle Catholic. Initially, I thought I could be okay with agreeing to raise our kids Catholic, but after our marriage, I wasn’t so sure. My husband was eager to baptize our firstborn but I was less than keen on the idea. In fact, I loathed the idea. Every time my husband would try to discuss her baptism with me, I would pick a fight. “It’s something that she has to chose to do, Dustin! She has to decide for herself!” Each time we argued about it, our words sailed over the other’s head–nothing was sinking in ..read more

Blaise Pascal said that there are four groups of people: Those who have found God, those that are seeking God, those that are seeking God to eradicate Him, and those that don’t even care. Last week, we covered King Herod. He was a seeker who sought to destroy God by trying to murder Him as a baby. Christ was a threat, a potential usurper. Today, we are going to focus on the chief priests and scribes. We are so comfortable nowadays, especially here in the States. In fact, we are so comfortable that we are bored out of our minds. Consequently, we fill our lives with video games, Netflix, porn ..read more

My husband was talking with a guy the other day who happens to be a Baptist. The guy had just finished praying with my husband over some work-related issues which was a very kind gesture. As they were talking, the other guy said, “I’ve come to respect a number of Catholics but there are quite a few things I don’t agree with you on. For one, you make what’s supposed to be a simple faith too complicated.” Because of a time constraint, my husband could only reply with, “Well, you know, I’d be happy to talk about this later with you.” My husband told me about this conversation when he got home an ..read more