Embracing Shame
Defensiveness, denial, rationalization, avoidance. What do these things have in common? It’s what we do when we avoid shame. None of us like to experience shame. None of us like to experience suffering. And we love to avoid. We love to deny. We love to distract ourselves because shame does not feel good. Here is the gospel, though, where Saint Peter does the same thing. He tells Jesus…
Something That Lasts
I recently took my college kids on a pilgrimage to Orvieto, Italy. Orvieto is the home to a Eucharistic Miracle, and I could talk about the Eucharistic Miracle all day. What is so crazy is that St. Thomas Aquinas lived during the time of this Eucharistic Miracle. St. Thomas Aquinas fell so deeply in love with Jesus and the Eucharist that he wrote “The Tantum Ergo.” “The Tantum Ergo” is sung every day around the world…
Yearning For God
Listen. I haven’t tried to die, so I can’t explain what I don’t know. But this is what I’m trying to say: there is a struggle in that moment of death. All hope is almost lost. And suddenly, it is clear that this person is about to die. Saint Augustine said, “We yearn for the Lord.” That yearning for God may come fully to you. At that moment, you have no more hope of anything other than the God who made you, who you are…
Security Blanket
Question: what is your security blanket? For Gollum, it’s the ring. For Tony Stark, it’s the Iron Man suit. For Woody, it’s his status as a favorite toy. In the gospel for the Sunday, Jesus gives us the foundations of discipleship, and one of those things is getting rid of the unhealthy attachments that prevent us from Jesus. We all have them. We all have those security blankets that bring us false security…
The Beauty Within
1 Peter 3:3 and 4, “Let not yours be the outward adorning with braiding of hair, decoration of gold, and wearing of robes. But let it be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable gold of a gentle and quiet spirit, which, in God’s sight, is very precious.” Some of us decorate ourselves with gold and silver, putting on expensive things. But that’s not the…
Passing on the Faith to our Children
The Book of Psalms 78:4. “We will not hide them from their children or tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord and His mind and the wonders which He has to wrought.” This passage is actually about handing down the baton. You know, the children are our future. We have to pass on the knowledge, but we have to teach them the right…