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.
why rage? we follow the Crucified.
Who raged when Christ was hauled away to be crucified, a monstrous death for an innocent man? Who fought back against it, against the injustice?
It was Peter with his sword, and it was Christ who disarmed him. Not only did Christ disarm Peter, but he went further and healed the man Peter attacked. Uncomprehending, the apostles scattered, and Jesus was led away in chains.
As long as Christians think with the logic of the world and not the theo-logic of God, we too will be uncomprehending. We too will raise the sword in defense of our rights. And we too will miss the point the Crucified One died showing us.
Examination of Conscience Using the Beatitudes
I lead a retreat for middle school students and formulated a way to do an examination of conscience based upon the Beatitudes. One of the things that I try to do here at LayEvangelist.com is to renew moral theology. What better way to stand on the ground of the Beatitudes in a truly Christian morality than to prepare the soul for Confession.
THE BEATITUDES EXAMEN
1. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Does my desire for poverty of spirit match my lifestyle?
When I pray, do I only ask God for things, instead of for a closer relationship with Him?
Do I contribute my time, talent and money to the poor of the world? Or to myself?
Community and Evangelization, part 1
My New Little Series on Evangelization and Community.
I've been thinking lately about two things: evangelization and community, and how they are inter-related. Here's some posts that will follow along these thoughts as I have them. As always, any series that I do are sporadic and incomplete. They are intimations and suggestions towards answers, not the answers themselves.
The Idea of Community
Most of my ministry is devoted to the cause of the new evangelization. I am trying to get a sense of where the Spirit is moving the Church today, of how He is transforming things like parish ministries, outreach, the marginalized and forgotten, the active and the devout. The new evangelization seems to suit me because I enjoy the idea of reaching out to Catholics who aren't really all that Catholic. The Mission Ad Gentes is too remote and I'll leave it to better, smarter, holier people to do authentic mystogogy.
Community is more difficult for me because I am a nerd and a bit of a loner when it comes to ministry stuff. Heck, this whole website is somewhat of a testament to that - it's just me typing away in my makeshift office all alone. But community is important, and so I need to focus my energy on developing a sane and helpful approach towards "fostering the Christian community", whatever that means.
Subverting Moralizing Laws with the Natural Law
The natural law cannot and ought not be, in every instance, enforced by human laws. That is to say, human laws are a moral guide, but are not sufficient to make men moral.
Indeed, the lawgiver who wants to make other men saints by criminalizing all sin is actually stepping outside his authority over the community and is overreaching, according to Aquinas' understanding of the natural law. There are for Aquinas many things that are sinful and destructive, but which still ought not to be prohibited by human legislators. Such things, though evil, ought to be tolerated within society. Criminalizing such things causes reprocussions even more disasterous than the evil itself.
This struck me deeply.