For Your Holiday Friday Night at the Movies: Soul Surfer

Are you ready for Summer to be over and for the kids to head back to school? Well guess what. My kids have been back in school since 3 weeks ago. Ugh! But just like the kids who don't start school until after Labor Day, their consolation is a long weekend now.

Recognizing Grace in a Manual Transmission

This past week, I've been on vacation. Actually, it's been a "stay-cation," with me working on little projects around the house. The repairs to our home after the hail damage (from the storms back in April) needed to be managed as well. And then there was my car.

Because A Reader Asks A Question I Cannot Answer

Dear Readers: The post "God Takes Care of Little Ones with Guardian Angels" from last spring is the most widely read of all the posts on our site. Yesterday, a reader asked a question I (Allison)  have not been able to answer, despite struggling overnight with it. I'm republishing my post, along with her question in the hopes that someone with more wisdom than I can answer.

Because It Was Time: A Confession on Why I Killed Santa Claus

There is a killing that I won't need to bring to my parish priests' attention the next time I enter the confessional. I killed Santa Claus a little over a year ago in my own household, and I have absolutely no regrets about doing so either.

Because it had to be done, see? Like when Old Yeller saved the day and protected the family from a rabid wolf.

Because Life is Like an Epic Poem (Not a Report Card)

—Feast of St. Zachary 

Report cards used to be a once every nine week event. Remember those halcyon days? Information technology being what it is, nowadays we can check our children's grades daily. Oh, the horror!

I say that because lately, the picture hasn't been pretty for several of my little darlings. Not that I ever hoped that my kids would make straight A's or anything like that. That would be a miracle, considering my part of their genetic make up.

For All the Saints: Philip of Heraclea & Companions

There are many saints on the calendar for today, but I'd like to share with you this story about St. Philip, the Bishop of Heraclea, and his two companions, the priest Severus, and the good deacon Hermes (named after the Roman god of fleet feet).

People are still being martyred in the present day. Physically, believe it or not in many parts of the world, and mentally elsewhere. Prepare for it because it is likely to happen to you, and maybe it already has, in some way, shape or form.

The following account is from the work of another saint, Alphonsus de Liguori's Victories of the Martyr's. Does St. Al's name sound familiar to you? It should because I shared something else he wrote right before I went on vacation this past summer.

Because I’m Billy Jack (Not Francis of Assisi)

A while back, I wrote a post where I said that I became a Catholic because I discovered that Christ, and His Church, wanted 100% of me. My whole heart, soul, mind and strength. The full-spectrum of Frank, warts and all. I needed to change, but I didn't have to stop being a man.

I'm especially thankful for this, as I don't fit the mold of modern-day milquetoast Christian guy. Namby-pamby, pacifistic, always gentle and kind. The ancients counseled “Know thyself,” and I know this about myself: I'm more like Billy Jack than I am like St. Francis of Assisi.

For The Witness Of Dom Lou Tseng-Tsiang (Circa 1948)

—Feast of the Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The other day, I finished reading John C.H. Wu's Beyond East and West. It is a great story and one which sadly is out of print. Today I am reading the book written by his friend Lou Tseng-Tsiang, briefly Prime Minister and former Foreign Minister of China. Here he is as a Benedictine monk and priest named Dom Pierre-Célestin. Is it just me, or does he look like the very model of serenity?

His friend John Wu called him Dom Lou, and he mentioned him a few times in Beyond East and West. What follows are a few of Dom Lou's thoughts on his conversion from the, again out of print, book he authored entitled Ways of Confucius and of Christ. 

Because of Trinitarian Love

The other night, my husband and I  listened on the family computer as our son, hundreds of miles from home, DJ'd an alternate-rock radio station. Not quite 14, our son had never been on the radio before; the stint is part of a camp he's attending for high schoolers interested in communications. We could hear how nervous he was, and how joyful, too.

For me and Greg, raising our sons means imbuing them with all the love and faith we can, and then offering them opportunities to fly on their own. We strive, most imperfectly, to reflect in our family life the Trinitarian nature of our God.

Because Nature Abhors A Vacuum

I found this photograph on a blog with the following caption: So Funny, So True. Maybe it's just me but I would argue that the caption should have been So Sad, So Tragic.

As a parent of three school-age children, there is plenty for me to worry about in the world. Teen "Self-Help" is not one of them. As the title for this post states, "Nature abhors a vacuum," a quote attributed to the philosopher Baruch Spinoza.