Start here.
I have written here since 2010 on evangelization, parish life, Scripture, apologetics, and the moral life. These six are the best place to begin.
Go Home and Live as Missionary Disciples
If your faith feels humdrum, you may not have entered the mission yet. A talk to men on what that asks of you.
Formed By Distraction
Eliot described minds pulled from one distraction to the next. We now carry that in our pockets. What is it forming in us?
What Is a Catholic?
A plain answer: who belongs to the Church Christ founded on the Apostles, and what holds that Church together.
Why You Need Your Men’s Group
Before asking whether men’s groups work, ask what problem they are meant to solve.
Why Protestants Are Becoming Catholic at My Parish
What draws evangelicals and mainline Protestants into the Catholic Church, as they told me in class.
How God Speaks in Human Words
The first of four articles on how the Bible is at once a human book and the Word of God.
How We Teach the Sacraments Matters: Three Spiritual Journeys
But because they are external, corporate, and memorized, people who don't have a relationship with Jesus Christ are left feeling disconnected to God because of the formalism of the liturgy and the sacraments. The thing is, the liturgy of the Church presupposes a personal prayer life at home. Community worship is supposed to extend and support the personal worship.
But for many Catholics their personal prayer life consists of a few Paters and Aves and the rest is liturgical. And thus, boring. There are no depths to the words spoken from the altar because their is no depth of living faith being actively cultivated in the hearer's heart. They are bored because they are disconnected between the words they say and the realities that unfold.
And when you are bored with something, you do not look hard for resolutions when conflicts come up. "Oh no, Billy has a Sunday soccer game in another city? I guess we will miss Mass." "Oh no, the Houston Texans are playing (and losing) a home game this Sunday? I guess we will miss Mass." When you are bored, you look for excuses to get out of it. When it isn't life-giving, every excuse is a good excuse.
So here is my solution to remedy some of this problem, and yes, it involves talking.